


Orizuru

by kadielkrieger



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M, Mystery, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-25
Updated: 2010-10-25
Packaged: 2017-10-13 03:44:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadielkrieger/pseuds/kadielkrieger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how insignificant the question, Jensen has always craved answers. The origami birds scattered in his path are no exception - each accompanying message more obscure and more pointed than the last. As he slowly becomes the proud owner of a growing paper menagerie, Jensen has to decide whether to follow the clues or follow his heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I can't thank qthelights enough for sticking with me through this project. When I thought it was ridiculous and pointless and worthy of binning, she convinced me otherwise, and I can't think of any art I'd rather have than the classy black and whites she's graced me with. I must also thank blue_fjords for lending her encouragement and beta skills, celticmelody for giving me the original brainbug, and kaylbunny for agreeing with me that origami might be an appropriate hobby for a certain someone. This is almost nothing like I originally imagined, but better for it, I think. Writing poetry is hard enough, but writing poetry as Misha is something else altogether.

In the past six years, Jensen's been party to a thousand and one different varieties of the inappropriate advance - some sweet, some spastic, most if not all delusional. He's seen more teddy bears and fainting spells, been barraged with more pointless panties than one mere mortal should have to endure. Most of the time, he can chalk it up to the fact there's a shit ton of crazy out in that wide, blue yonder and being in the public eye earns you more than just a taste. But in all these years and in spite of the sometimes gross invasions of privacy, he's never once considered taking out a restraining order.

That was before the crazy chickens came home to roost, no less crazy for the fact that they're made of paper or that they're actually cranes.

Jensen thinks that's what they are anyway.

They remind him of a unit he did on Japan junior year and the fluffy cardigans Ms. Greene wore when autumn spun over into winter, the way her knee had nudged up against his calf when she crouched down beside his desk. All facts that guaranteed he'd read about the Bushido ten years later and would forever be a disaster at origami. There were better things to think about back then, like her grapefruit shampoo, her easy smiles, or the caramel candy that she kept in a jar on her desk. Lucky for him, she was new enough to be relatively guileless, so she'd offered to help whenever he asked. If he was an asshole, Jensen would lay the blame for the gaping holes in his knowledge of world history squarely on her shoulders. But he's not an asshole.

Okay, he's not _normally_ an asshole. Extenuating circumstances seem to have this power to turn normal into just another word, and today is not a normal day.

So says the hot pink paper bird riding in Jensen's jacket pocket that he sure as hell didn't put there.

It had all started about a week ago, maybe a week and a half. This deep into the shooting schedule, days run together like wet paint slapped on much slicker canvas and time's just an abstract blot slapped down between sleeping today and sleeping tomorrow. They'd been shooting Buntzen again, so he'd brought Icarus along to plunder the spoils of the dog beach during breaks. The first crane - white wings smudged grey-green by dirt and algae - almost ended its short, pulpy life on the tail-end of Ick's digestive track. At the time, it hadn't struck Jensen as weird beyond the fact that Icarus dragged him halfway around the lake and out onto a weatherbeaten dock to get to it.

The second - yellow with streamers of blue ink scrawled across every flat surface - had literally fallen in his lap. At the first lighting reset, he'd escaped the long stretch of gravel in favor of his trailer only to be called back as soon as he got there. By the fourth one, he'd learned his lesson and hunkered down in the driver's seat of the Impala to close his eyes instead. When he'd lowered the sun visor to block out the glare, the crane attacked, bouncing off his chest and through the space between his knees on its journey to the floorboard.

One could be explained away. Two might be simple coincidence. Given the placement of his third unfeathered friend, that seems unlikely. The whole thing's a little fucking weird and he could kick himself for throwing the first two away since now more than anything he wants to know who, followed closely by why.

While the paper color may have been left to the whim of the PA responsible for distributing today's changes, the passage scratched across the blank side of the page when he pulls the bird apart sure as shit ain't.

> When your hands leap towards mine, love, what do they bring me in flight?
> 
> Why did they stop at my lips, so suddenly, why do I know them, as if once before, I have touched them, as if, before being, they travelled my forehead, my waist? [[1]](http://docepax.livejournal.com/12308.html)

Jensen can't tell if the words are borrowed, but they absolutely _are_ the wrong side of intimate. Coming from a stranger, the passage registers in a vaguely creepy way he's not accustomed to. If he knew or was with the person that planted them, they wouldn't be weird at all. But he doesn't. So it is.

If only to himself, he's man enough to admit he's dabbled in the odd romantic gesture. Back in the day, he always took shit for bringing his girl flowers and opening car doors. That didn't change once he found himself squinting under the bright lights of Hollywood, even if his tastes and methods did.

But this - it's sand under his skin, an itch he can't quite seem to scratch. For all the times he's been propositioned or pawed at without being asked, it's either been out in the open or from far enough away he can laugh it off. Instead there's this hollow pit eating away at his gut. Suspicion, doubt, and before he can stop himself there's a list of possible perps spooling through his head that runs the gamut from the new intern to Kripke himself.

It absolutely includes Jared.

Which may be why he feels less than charitable when Jay pops up on the path between him and his trailer.

"Dude. Who died?"

Jensen sighs and skirts Jared with a broad sidestep. "Shit day, okay. That's all. You actively fucking with someone I don't know about?" he asks, leaving the 'like me' unspoken.

"If you mean replacing the cups in Misha's trailer with baby bottles, then yeah. Since when do I have to clear it with you?"

Jared falls into step behind him and Jensen tenses. He fully expects to open the door to his trailer and suffocate beneath an avalanche of paper birds. Some part of him even wants it, if only to pull that last puzzle piece into place. May not be Jay's typical style, but Misha's a bad influence - a sort of gateway drug to a brave new world of destructive pranks.

There are days Jensen feels like he's back in grade school, playing referee between Tommy Wilkins and Rob Landers. Most of the time, Jared's antics are hilarious, their prank wars epic, and since neither he nor Misha go out of their way to fuck with him when they've got each other to harass, Jensen considers keeping a straight face an acceptable burden.

Right now, he's not amused.

But beyond the door, it's business as usual. Not a bird in sight. Jared pushes in at his back then flops on the couch hard enough to bounce the shocks and pulls a hand through his hair. Somehow when he says, "What gives?" it doesn't sound like an accusation.

"Shit day, like I said."

"Jesus, Jensen. That is not your 'Shit Day' face," Jared sighs, then bats his eyelashes. "Are we going to have to talk about our feelings?"

"Fuck you," Jensen spits back, but there's no fire behind it. This is why Jared's maybe the best friend he's ever had.

"Aww. We both know you're not my type, sweetcheeks. But thanks for the offer."

Correction, Jared _was_ his best friend.

"With. A. Spoon."

Jared wisely decides to ignore the playground antics, electing to spend his time ransacking the entertainment cabinet in the corner instead. Eventually he liberates a wireless XBox controller from the jumble and _Undisputed_ spins up on the tiny flat panel tucked in the corner. Whether the bullshit banter is truly bullshit or not, Jensen's grateful. The bird's still burning a hole in his pocket, but he's got his equilibrium back. Jared's enough of a distraction that he's not thinking about it directly anymore. Jensen's going to count that as a win.

"Move, Gigantor," he says, easing through the narrow gap between Jared's heels and the brass kick-plate on the door.

Jared does, leans in to snag another controller that he lobs at the other end of the couch, then fits himself into his pre-made ridges in the corner with a broad smile. "Anything you say, my Lilliputian friend."

"Fuck yo...shit, we've already covered that today, haven't we?"

"Yep," Jared says, sounding too pleased with himself for anyone's good.

"I'm so gonna kick your ass. You know this right?" At this point it's just a formality, gamer-zen is not in the Padalecki stable of virtues.

"Really? Because while you were bitching and moaning and repeating yourself, I yoinked BJ Penn."

Jensen barely resists the urge to do Jared bodily harm. In the end, trying to explain the black eye to Phil and (by extension) Eric is all that stays his hand. "I'll see your Penn and raise you a Condit, bitch."

The music that spools out of the speakers sounds tinny and weak, not at all like his system at home. Which both sucks and doesn't, because he can't remember the last time Jay came over. Not since Gen's pilot tanked and she moved north for the season, anyway. And he loves Gen. Loves that Jared loves Gen. Shit, if his logical brain is engaged, Jensen can even acknowledge that since he and Jared are together all day every day when they're filming, it's only natural that Jay would want to spend the meager down time he gets with his blushing bride. It's the principle of the thing though, and it makes him twitchy to think how far inside each other's pockets they once lived.

Jared's voice yanks him out of the potential mire. "You good?" he asks, careful to keep his eyes on the screen, the chain-link octagon spinning like a drunken top amidst a sea of flashing lights.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good," Jensen says, even though he isn't. Nothing Jay can do to fix it and while Jensen believes that Jared's not the one fucking with him, he's not in the mood to share. Yet. "Better anyway. Doesn't mean there's suddenly a moratorium on me kicking your ass."

"Bring it," Jared says and grins wider, all white flashing teeth.

In spite of the foul mood, he stop himself from returning it- the things are a contagion, a weapon of mass destruction, a blight upon the face of the fucking universe, and he's thankful for every single one. Jay always manages to slide him back to center somehow, and as Jensen kicks his heels up on his makeshift coffee table he breathes deep for the first time since he found his pink paper pal lurking in his pocket.

"Okay, Bridget," he says. "Prepare to have your pom poms ruffled."

He'll handle it. They'll handle it. Shit, if need be, Clif will handle it. Even so, Jensen hopes it doesn't come to that - the mere idea of explaining the cranes to anyone makes the turkey on rye turn over in his stomach. He's not a teenager and he's not a prima donna. Talking about it officially, even filing an informal complaint with the powers that be seems like overkill. There's no reason for this to end in hard feelings or lost wages, no need to throw his manhood to the mercy of a higher power. Not if he can flush them out and make them understand.

Jensen taps out a string of commands and onscreen Condit twists, back bowed, right foot connecting with Penn's ribcage as Jared curses. Years of experience have taught him when to get his virtual hands up, and based on the hunch of Jay's shoulders the time has come. He smirks at the set of Jared's chin when Condit weaves beyond Penn's reach, snorts at the predictable clack and squeak of plastic that follows.

Today may be the day Jared finally buys him that new set of controllers.

The thought lingers, tickling against Jensen's subconscious like victory, the last of the tension seeping out of his muscles on a sigh.

Somehow, Jared levels a glare his direction without even looking at him, the "I hate you," as venomous and bitchy as anything Sam has ever said to Dean.

It's awesome.

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful, baby," Jensen says, switching things up, going back on the offensive as Jared's thumbs slow their furious pace against the buttons.

"I've got a spoon too, Jen, and I'm not afraid to use it."

Jensen snorts. "Wouldn't want to traumatize you. Seeing as I'm not your type and all." He executes another combo, but it's his turn to curse this time, the third blow missing well wide when someone pounds on the trailer door hard enough to shake the blinds above their heads.

Clock be damned, the angle of the sun on the wall tells him the hour they were given when he stomped off set hasn't slipped past yet.

There's another, slightly less violent, knock and a high, reedy voice drifts in. "Jensen?"

"S'open," he calls, eyes flicking instinctively to the door and then back. Jared takes the opening, Penn's fist connecting with Condit's face twice in the half second of distraction. "Anyone ever tell you you're a dick, Jay?"

"Dunno what you're talking about," Jared says, dropping the controller in his lap. "I am the epitome of sweetness and light."

"You're the epitome of something, alright."

Jensen recognizes the PA hovering at the threshold, even if he can't remember her name - Shawna, Shawnee, Sharon. Something. He hates when it happens, feels like a douchebag rockstar that can't be bothered to keep the names of the chicks in his entourage straight. It's not who he is. She's not one of the regulars and she's only been around a couple weeks, but still.

In his continuing bid to make Jensen's head explode, Jared beams up at her. "Hey Cheyenne, how's Dingo doing?"

She, Cheyenne, huffs a laugh, cheeks going rosy as she replies. "He's good. A couple more days and he'll be back on solid food."

Her dark hair fans wildly behind her when the screen door slaps closed, the blonde streak near the front dipping into her eyes as she bends her head to dig through her front pocket.

Jensen can feel the question forming in the back of his head, the only polite one he can muster considering thirty seconds ago he couldn't dig the girl's name out of his brain. He feels like he should care who Dingo is, Jared obviously does, but he's too busy being pissed off at himself to make it past the expected response. Next time he won't forget. Cheyenne - Hello Kitty T-shirt, neon green laces in her Docs, silver stud in her nose.

Paper crane in her hand.

"I think you dro--"

As it turns out, reflexes are exactly what they pretend to be - completely unconscious reactions to an appropriate set of stimuli. Before he works his way back around to actual thoughts, Jensen's already on the first stair outside with Cheyenne's thin wrist caught in a death grip. She stumbles over her own feet on the second step and reflex also dictates he catch her. It's the chivalrous thing to do. The moment lasts half a beat, her standing in the circle of his arms staring up at him, breathing hard around a tentative smile.

And he knows.

"I-you. You need to stop," Jensen says, disentangling himself hastily.

Cheyenne sways on her feet before she steadies and he can't help but feel sorry for her, even though by all rights he should be furious. Is furious. Or at least trying to be.

"Stop what? You dropped this," she says, thrusting the crumpled bird at him a second time. "It looked like something you might want to keep."

"Why would I-?" Jensen starts, but changes his mind at the last minute. For whatever reason, he believes her. She doesn't look like a mastermind any more than she seems crazy and star-struck. She wouldn't have let go quite so easily if she was. It means someone _else_ is fucking with him. Or stalking him. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. "Who put you up to this?"

"Put me up to--oh, _oh_ , okay." Jensen watches the realization dawn on her face, wishing he knew what it was. Thankfully, she doesn't disappoint. "Prank war, huh?" she says, shaking her head slowly. "Dude, I just found it under your chair as we were striking one set to activate another. Jared's probably the better one to ask."

Which would be fine, great, fucking fantastic except that Jensen really doesn't want to talk to Jay about it. He already feels stupid for letting it get to him, stupidity that's been compounded by anger and if it's not Jared's game, Jensen's fairly certain he's going to get laughed out of his own trailer for bringing it up.

Of course, none of that is Cheyenne's fault.

"Sorry," he says, baser instincts rattling him to attention. He knows better than to manhandle people, and it says something that he'd forgotten himself. Not anything good. "That was uncalled for, even if it had been you. I got no right to put my hands on you."

"Honey, you can put your hands on me anytime you want," she says, dangerous little smirk carving her lips into a new shape, tongue peeking between her teeth to show off the fact she's apparently pierced there too. In a moment of pure, ridiculous testosterone-fueled insanity his mind wanders, trying to fill in the blanks about where else she might be pierced.

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe she is the girl. You can never be too wary of crazy. Then Cheyenne tips her head back and laughs like her lungs are going to burst if she doesn't, leaving her gasping for breath and Jensen trying to keep his emotions in check.

"That," she says, "is what you call payback." Cheyenne grabs his hand and presses the crane against his palm. "Got a girl anyway." She forces his fingers closed around it, crumpling it further. "Word of advice though? Chill out. This is not worth a heart attack."

With that she spins on her heel and stalks across the parking lot, presumably to get back to work. Jensen watches her go, hoping he can trust her to keep her mouth shut.

She's right of course.

Were it an option, Jensen would gladly let the entire crane fiasco slide. He realizes that if he just ignored them, after a while they'd stop coming. But he can't. Has never been able to. To this day, his momma says that if by some miracle he'd been born a cat, he'd have used up every last one of his nine lives before he turned five.

She's right too. Mothers usually are. So she'd be the least surprised of anyone that he can't resist the temptation balled up in his fist. White again this time but sloppy, like it wants to come apart or was finished in a rush. The ink's black, but the handwriting's the same - sharply sloped and messy without tripping over into illegible. Recognition sparks, but he can't hold on to it and resigns himself to using other methods to discover the identity of the mystery folding fiend.

This time, the actual text is worse than the fact that the thing exists at all.

> ...in the curve of you  
> hair plastered flat and clinging  
> as you bow for me ~~dappled~~  
>  shadows stringing along your limbs  
> caught  
> catching  
> and undone

 

Fuck.

The hinges creak when he heads back in, screen door snapping shut at his heels. Thin as the walls are, Jensen's not sure how much Jared heard and what kind of shit storm he's walking into.

The grin that greets him is confirmation enough.

Jared takes a breath.

"No. Just - no," Jensen says, cutting him off. "We will never speak of this."

Jared snorts. "You're shittin' me, right?"

"I'm not anything-ing you. Because we are not talking about this." Jensen feels the exhaustion settling right down into his bones. The day. The cranes. Cheyenne's smackdown. Jared's unholy glee. The fact that he _can't_ just let it go. If only he could be at home in bed right the fuck now, life would be golden. Unfortunately, they have three pages left to film before that can happen.

In lieu of dying on the spot or, as previously suggested, having a heart attack, Jensen scrubs his free hand across his face and escapes to the dollhouse-sized bathroom to hunt down a bottle of painkillers.

Jensen considers it a small miracle that he makes it up the front steps without stumbling over himself and cracking his head open. He's dead on his feet, quite literally zombied out by the eighteen hour day and the seemingly endless string of obnoxious gestures and theatrically puckered lips he'd been subjected to during his coverage. Between Jared giving him shit and his subconscious playing twenty thousand questions, he's as tired as he's ever been.

Of course it doesn't help that he'd spent all three pages fighting himself, trying and failing to set aside his own emotional baggage in favor of Dean's until he was just as strung out as the character he's supposed to be playing. There are reasons he's not Method, not that he needs reminding.

As he slides his key home, Jensen throws a wave over his shoulder and watches Clif's headlights sweep a wide arc across the driveway. By the time the door shuts behind him, he's already mentally compiling a list of things he should do but won't. The mail's not going anywhere. The trashcan in the kitchen won't magically overflow while he's passed out. Forgoing a shower in favor of sleep isn't going to mean he's any more gritty and disgusting when he wakes up, only that he won't be any cleaner. And the two paper cranes tucked in the outside pocket of his backpack can wait until he has an actual brain to try to wrap around them. Right the hell now, his agenda includes three Down-Alternative pillows and a fucking fleece blanket.

Unfortunately, there's a spastic ball of white fluff waiting to thwart his designs on a straight shot to bed and oblivion. The tags jangling on his collar announce Icarus long before his nails click-clack triumphantly against the tile in the foyer. Jensen thanks his lucky stars every day that barking has never seemed to interest Ick all that much. Sure, he's a climber and a whiner and given the nonsense pattern he's winding around Jensen's ankles, he's a hazard to the average sleepwalker's health. He's just not noisy. Jensen suspects his neighbors are only slightly less grateful for that than he is.

Belly rubs and chin scratches are the only compensation Icarus demands of him, and Jensen hasn't got the heart to deny them when he knows full well the dogsitter left hours ago. He crouches where he stands, yawning wide as Icarus pads over and nudges up under his hand.

"Hey little man, how was your day? Did Selena run you ragged at the park again?"

Icarus tilts his head and whines softly. Jensen has always presumed that means yes, even if doing so makes him one of _those_ people.

"Let's go to bed then."

Bed is one of the first words Icarus learned and in the ensuing scramble of miniature paws and fur, the streak of white scampering down the hall, Jensen wonders what that says about him and his skills as a puppy parent. Sit and stay are probably more useful, roll-over more impressive. Between the headache and fatigue, the crust of rail-yard dirt that flakes across the unassuming beige tile when he toes his boots off, Jensen can't be bothered to care. Bed is a very useful word. Bed is a glorious word.

Once he slings his jacket over the arm of the couch and drops his keys in the shallow bowl on the table in the hall, bed is the _only_ word.

Except for the part where it isn't. Even after he's stripped down to his boxers and the sheets are warming slowly against his bare back, even after he's pummeled the pillows into an acceptable shape, Jensen can't really shake it. Icarus circles at the foot of the bed, collapsing with a quiet whump once he's satisfied. Five minutes later, he's already well-entrenched in a series of snuffling snores that leaves Jensen alone with his thoughts and a whole mess of ceiling-staring to get on with.

The pieces don't fit. Won't fit no matter how many times he turns them over in his head, like they're coming from completely different kinds of puzzles, not just different boxes. It's fucking frustrating.

On one hand, it has to be a prank. Not just any prank, but a premeditated one pulled by someone who has access, motive, and information. They'd have to know him well enough to understand the true depth of his irritation with 'Random Acts of Obsession' whether they're perpetrated by fans or crew or fucking Jared. That alone narrows the pool of suspects to a cool two dozen with Jay himself posting top honors. Misha only trails by virtue of a tentative truce they'd established late last year that ended with Jay's SUV parked on the roof of the studio wrapped with a pink bow. While Misha may understand his burning desire to be left the hell alone, Jensen's pretty sure he doesn't sympathize. Still, history goes a long way in letting him give Misha the benefit of the doubt.

The phrasing isn't right for a prank though, the passages too honest and heartfelt. Not unless that's the point. Then there's the handwriting to consider, so familiar it's driving him slowly insane - like a word on the tip of his tongue that he can't quite vocalize.

Damn it all to hell.

Icarus rouses, huffing sleepily into his paws when Jensen swings his legs over the edge of the bed. It takes a single reassuring pat to ease him back down, his mouth going slack again as Jensen pads quietly into the living room to retrieve his infuriating paper pals.

Moonlight bathes the couch under the window, long stripes of silver laid against black leather. The cushions are cool to the touch, colder on his ass when it hits and he sinks deep into the corner. He stares at the cranes for a long time, willing them to out their secrets so he can sleep in peace.

Inanimate objects in general are less forthcoming than he'd like, and so the only response he gets is the same sharp bend of neck to head, the same wide flare of wing.

At some point he must drift off. With no one to push him back to bed, the next thing Jensen remembers is flailing himself awake, kneecap catching the corner of the coffee table as he fends off a flock of paper birds worthy of Hitchcock. Every last one of them crowing with laughter and trying to peck his clothes off.

"Fucking _fuck_ ."

While it's not the worst dream he's ever had, it's also not the best. His head's foggy and his knee's throbbing, the sharp shock of the strike easing off into something more bearable when he stands to stretch out the kinks.

The clock mocks him, bright white numbers proclaiming it 4:32 AM. From their perch between two couch cushions, the cranes stare silently back, joining in on the mockfest simply by virtue of existing.

Jensen pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes.

"Screw this," he mutters and grabs the misshapen scraps of paper, deposits them on the top shelf of his bookcase to keep the dust bunnies company.

Out of sight, out of mind. He's too tired to deal with it anyway. And if he's lucky, really fucking lucky, all it'll take is the healthy application of mind over matter to convince himself he doesn't care.

Because he doesn't.


	2. Chapter 2

"To what do I owe the diva?"

Jensen peers over his shoulder, ass sliding on the film of wax and dust coating the Impala's fender. With only a sad handful of hours spent unconscious between him and yesterday, Jensen's not really in the mood to humor anyone. Even less so when that anyone happens to be a Misha on a mission.

It's not that there's love lost between them. Or love - gained. Or even that Misha fails to recognize the subtleties that shine beacon-bright for Jared, the ones that scream, "Danger, Will Robinson," in no uncertain terms.

Misha simply chooses to ignore them with unparalleled vigor.

Jensen sighs and turns back to stare at the compelling patch of dirt caught between the toes of his boots.

"If I thought you gave a shit, I'd explain that I'm not in the mood for your crazy today," he says. "Since you cleared up that particular misconception a long time ago, all I've got is a hearty 'Fuck you'."

Beneath him, the car rolls back a quarter inch, finding her ruts again with Misha sprawled into a lazy lean across the hood. Jensen braces for the inevitable innuendo, the suggestive smirk that means _nothing_ beyond providing proof Misha's still breathing. It never comes. Instead, Misha plants his heels against the bumper and slides himself up, trench coat and all.

"Let's try again," he says, and Jensen feels him settle in, fingers laced together, elbows meeting knees. "Something on your mind?"

Jensen fakes a smile, says, "No more so than usual," and pulls a long swallow off the bottle of water slowly warming in his fist.

It's a lie, obviously it's a lie, but he has some skill at selling the impossible or so he's been told.

Not his fault that Misha's a miser.

"Bullshit," Misha says, leaning close to pluck the bottle out of Jensen's hand.

It's a thing. One of the very few things Misha inflicts on him alone, and a pattern that they'd established as quid pro quo before they even exchanged pleasantries. Jensen remembers even if Misha doesn't, how he'd been standing outside Jared's trailer on a rare sweltering day in Vancouver, water in one hand and the other anchoring the end of Harley's rope pull. Even now, Jensen has no idea what he and Jay had been talking about, but he remembers Misha had strolled up unannounced and snatched the water out of his hand; nodded, said thanks, then resumed his unhurried meander toward the make-up trailer.

He's been at it ever since and even though Jensen's gotten used to it over the years, it's a welcome distraction from the great crane caper and the pile of shit he's making of the dailies.

Or it was. Until Misha stumbles upon the truth.

"You," Misha says, "reek of Eau de Vexation."

Jensen tries to play it off, unwilling to give Misha an inch of ground he hasn't officially conquered. "Who the hell uses the word vexation?"

"Points for intent," Misha says evenly, but the smile that greets Jensen when he glances over is telling. "Unfortunately for you, true deflection requires more ingenuity to execute. All you've managed to do so far is call my attention to the fact you're deflecting."

"Awesome. I suck. You are both benevolent and omniscient. Can we skip the Yoda shtick today? I'm not in the mood for it either."

Jensen shoves his hands in his pockets, content to pick apart the bundle of thread tucked in the corner if it keeps him from fidgeting.

"In the interests of getting me to go the fuck away," Misha says, "I propose we observe the freedom of information act.

"Meaning?'

Misha slides down the hood, his hip and thigh and knee pressed too close for Jensen's complete comfort. There's necessity, and then there's whatever this is. Jensen kind of wants to plant an elbow between his ribs to back him off.

"You tell me what manner of small, furry creature crawled up your ass."

"And?" Jensen asks, because nothing is ever simple when it comes to Misha.

"And I help you extract it. Figuratively," he adds as an afterthought. "If there's actually a small, furry creature in your ass I think we both have larger concerns."

"Naturally."

"Were that the case, I'd be inclined to send you to Doc Belcher on referral. He's very discreet."

Jensen feels his control begin to slip, feels the telltale tension in his jaw, the grit of Misha getting up under his skin with his abstractly surgical line of questioning. Or, that's the excuse Jensen would probably offer for shouting, "There are no literal or figurative furry things in my ass," if anyone cared enough to ask.

Misha smirks."Apparently there are," he says. "Enlighten me, please, so we can finish this fucking scene we've shot eighteen times and get on with our lives."

"Jesus, Misha. Give it a rest," Jensen says, finally snatching his water back. He gives the bottle an experimental shake before he shrugs and takes a drink. A second swallow gives him time to contemplate actually being honest, but then he thinks through how that conversation might go and decides against it. Misha would have a field day geared out like Carmen Sandiego or Columbo, questioning dames and dolls through clenched teeth and wearing an even more rumpled trenchcoat paired with a squashed fedora. It would be both hilarious and horrible.

Instead Jensen says, "Whatever my issues are, they aren't work related. So there's no reason for you to worry your pretty little head about them."

Hell, _he_ doesn't even want to worry about them.

Misha squints, brow furrowed and Adam's apple bobbing oddly, says, "Yeah, no. Right. I forgot," as he pushes himself away from the front bumper and disappears into the deep shadows cast in between them and the miniature production trailer park down the road.

Jensen stares after him, turning the words over in his head and trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to figure out what the hell just happened. In the end he chalks it up to Misha being Misha, and lets the fact that Misha by and large errs on the side of really fucking weird be explanation enough. Really. Not like he's allowed much time for thoughtful consideration anyway. Thirty seconds after Misha stalks off, Jared's hand slaps against the roof of the Impala hard enough to make him jump. Jared also being Jared, laughs.

"I see you're still making friends and influencing people," Jared says, his voice way too loud and close for any sane person's comfort.

On top of being Saturday, it's midnight again, and all Jensen wants is to get through the next handful of minutes, survive until Phil inevitably calls it a night and sends them home. When he doesn't react, Jared and his Red Bull-inspired spaz attack seem to interpret the silence as an invitation to go on. Which it isn't, but Jensen's not in the mood to attempt to derail Jay when he's on a caffeine high either. Glaring doesn't take much effort though, especially since he's already worked himself up into a good scowl. Glaring it is.

The car rocks a second time, Jared suddenly occupying the space Misha so recently vacated. It's irritating, and not only because Jared's usually better at reading him than this, but also because Misha just up and fucked off in the middle of a sentence.

"Aww, what's wrong princess? Lover's spat?" Jared slings an arm over his shoulders, and Jensen at least has the presence of mind to shrug him off when Jay leans in to pinch his cheek. "No fine, feathered friends to add to your flock today? How dare she."

And that is _not_ what this is about. He's just - tired. Tired because he spent an hour last night staring at a couple of creepy-ass paper birds that someone saw fit to saddle him with, but that has nothing to do with his mood.

He doesn't care.

"Like I'd tell you if there was," he says and shoves at Jared again to get some breathing room. "But no. Don't give a shit, either way."

Jared, of course, pushes back, nearly unseating Jensen from his spot on the fender. "Bullshit. You want to know so bad you can't breathe for thinking about it. I know you, Jen. It's driving you insane. So spill. Working theories? Suspects? Knees that need breaking?"

Arguing with Jared when he's like this makes about as much sense as skipping through Pamplona wearing red, so Jensen refrains, electing to change the subject instead of beating his head against the brick wall of Jared's will. It's only logical. And he really, truly doesn't care.

"Watch the game last night?"

He's not sure which game he's even referencing, but there was a game on last night in some market involving some team Jay follows. There always is. Then again, Jensen also already knows Jared hasn't had three hours sit in front of the fucking television with a Cowboys game in the last month, not to mention the last week. He knows because he hasn't had time either. Out of the corner of his eye, Jensen catches Jay rolling his before he taps out a sharp staccato pattern against his thigh.

"That how it's gonna be?" Jared asks, the last word drawling off into a yawn with too many syllables to count.

It means he's not nearly as keyed up as he's putting on and it leaves Jensen a window of opportunity, a broad tree-lined avenue of escape.

"Think I was pretty clear yesterday," he says. "So, if by 'it' you mean not talking about the stalker bullshit, then yes."

Jared sighs, shakes his head, and says, "Whoever they are, they've done a number on you. If you've got time to remove your head from your ass, can you tell me where to send the flowers for your dearly departed sense of humor?"

"Humor has jack and shit to do with this," Jensen says, just a little too loud, and for the first time he allows himself a sliver of doubt, lets himself wonder why he can't just ignore the whole ridiculous episode. The answer's not immediately forthcoming, so he sips at what's left of his water instead.

"Unbelievable," Jared sighs and for a few seconds just stares at him, eyes crinkling and mouth pressed down into a thin white line that borders on bitchface. Then he breathes like he's arrived at some sort of weighty internal decision and lets the subject officially drop, kicks his heels up on the bumper and says, "Fine. I'll play. How 'bout them Stars?" like it's the most natural thing in the world.

It's too easy. Suspiciously so, but Jensen's in no position to split hairs. He'll take any latitude he can get.

"They're...okay." He has no fucking clue where the Stars rank right now, but if it means putting his inconvenient obsession to rest for the night, Jensen's all for it.

The last trickle of water slips down his throat, tepid now where he's had it in his hand. He crushes the bottle in question to half its size and sends it sailing at a trash can. It rims out , but it's the shot that counts. Beside him, Jared huffs something that sounds halfway between a laugh and a snort. Whatever it _is_ , what it isn't is attractive.

When Jensen glances over though, Jay's eyes are lazily lidded and he's only paying the most marginal attention as he grins his slow, cactus cooler grin and says, "Denied."

Phil shouts over the general set pandemonium, finally realizing that everyone lost their last legs two hours ago and maybe it's a good night to close up shop earlier than he'd planned. It conveniently saves Jared the embarrassment of getting his ass publicly handed to him, and then only because the mere idea of eight uninterrupted hours of sleep is enough to send Jensen swooning.

That's absolutely the only reason.

It has nothing to do with the fact that Jensen's legs are on autopilot or that Jay's trudging beside him making those moose noises he passes off as yawns. Nothing at all. It has even less to do with the fact that when they finally make it to their trailers, Jared stops him with a soft, "Hey, um," followed by another jaw-cracker and, "so we're having this thing tomorrow, apparently. Brunch or whatever. You should come."

Which yeah, he should, and he _wants_ to, of course he does.

He's just not sure when he turned into a last minute invite.

Still, he says, "Why not?" and means it, because what the hell else does he have to do tomorrow but everything he can't do the rest of the week.

It sure as hell has nothing to do with the fact that when he nudges open the bathroom door in his trailer to grab the extra bottle of painkillers he keeps in the medicine cabinet, there's a fucking paper turtle crouched on the vanity waiting to snap.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Miraculously, Jensen manages to tear through three loads of laundry, half a dozen phone calls, and a much needed full-fridge evacuation before he's due to appear at Chateau de Padalecki. Insomnia does that. Jared's definition of 'brunch' sure as hell helps though. Last time he checked, Jensen could have sworn the word brunch loosely translated to a meal served between breakfast and lunch. The whole portmanteau thing implies it. But given the business they're in, breakfast and lunch are just words without a timeline to tack them to and Jared has a tendency to stuff his face no less than six times a day, so it's not like it really matters.

Still, 3PM Pacific Daylight only qualifies as brunchtime somewhere in the middle of the fucking ocean.

Semantics.

The place looks different when he pulls into the drive. Nothing overt, of course. No lace valances swooping in window frames or whimsical butterfly lawn ornaments to declare Gen's presence. Each change is tasteful, purposeful, and makes the house homey in a way it never was when he and Jared were kicking around in each other's space.

It puts a secret ache in the back of his throat, one he has a name for but doesn't want to acknowledge. And even though he plans to have a blast giving Jared shit about the sculpted holly bushes out front and the eco-friendly LED lights flanking both sides of the walkway, Jensen's not altogether sure that this shindig will supply the kind of distraction he's after.

Namely, the drunk kind.

For one, there's a near-constant stream of youthful laughter drifting over the fence. For two, Harley's answering woofs are riding way too close to that line between 'save me' and 'fucking pissed'. That doesn't even take into consideration the six car-seats he counted on his journey up the front walk. Not that he doesn't love kids, he does. He just didn't plan on playing jungle gym today.

But fortunately for everyone else, his upbringing demands he abstain from getting shitfaced in mixed company.

The porch still creaks when he hits the top step, the chunk Jared gouged out of it with a pair of pruning shears two years ago covered in a fresh coat of white paint. There's a wreath on the door, willow woven with ivy, and a note scrawled in a loopy script that says, "Come on in."

He wavers, wondering just how much of a dick it'd make him if he took his Petit Syrah and got the fuck out of Dodge. Tempting though it might be, he can't justify flight. It's Jared. Jared would jump in front of a speeding semi for him or worse. If he can face an auditorium full of screaming strangers asking him ridiculous questions, surely he can make small talk with a bunch of people he knows and their significant others.

Doesn't mean he's in the mood to.

In the end, the choice gets taken away, the doorknob turning in his hand and door opening to reveal a familiar face.

"Jensen?"

"Hey squirt," he replies, wrapping her up in a bear hug without even stopping to think about the bottle in his hand or the leash in hers. It's only when Sadie paws at his pants leg that he lets go. Megan smiles then, and in that moment no one in their right mind would mistake her for anyone other than Jared Padalecki's baby sister.

"Hey now. The statute of limitations ran out on that nickname the day I turned twenty-one. Get with the program, _Jenny_."

"One death-wish fulfillment coming right up."

The sound Megan makes when Jensen hefts her over his shoulder could pierce the ozone layer. Sadie joins in, howling high and mournful as Jensen turns around and carefully navigates the two stairs between him and level ground. Even with the high-volume chatter inside the house, apparently the racket they're making outside is worthy of some attention, and when Jensen looks up from trying to unwind his ankles from Sadie's lead, Jared's leaning against the doorjamb, watching.

"I feel I should warn you she's high maintenance. Since you're running off with her and all."

"Dude. Gross. She's your sister."

"I'm not the one that's got her slung over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes."

Megan breaks in, the "JT!" squealed just the wrong side of shrill right in his fucking ear and followed by a long suffering sigh that speaks to a life lived with two pain-in-the-ass older brothers.

"She called me Jenny, Jay. She knows the rules as well as anyone. Now where's the hose?"

Jared snorts. "'Round back, last I saw. She never did learn."

" _She_ can hear you. And _she_ would like to remind you both that she is wearing boots with very pointy toes."

Jensen smirks and decides against drawing it out any longer. They both know that under the circumstances, he's not going to take a hose to her and he really doesn't want to give her a chance to make good on her threat.

"In that case," he says, pitching abruptly forward to dump her on her ass in the grass. He almost loses the wine to the bend of her knee but manages to shift his grip at the last moment. She claws at his back, trying to pull him off balance and send him sprawling too, but if the years of stage combat are good for anything, they're good for this.

"I. Hate. You," she says, cheeks rosy and hair mussed, looking so much like the kid he met all those years ago, it makes Jensen's gut churn. Her eyes narrow, but she picks herself up and dusts herself off without another word to either of them, the heels of her boots clacking sharply against the sidewalk and Sadie ambling in her wake.

With the coast reasonably clear, Jared joins him out on the lawn. He's togged out in weekend wear - a nearly threadbare Spurs T-shirt, an equally ragged pair of jeans, and a pair of those stupid sandals Jensen hates. He looks relaxed, happy, and Jensen can't help but be happy for him in spite of the sandals.

"I'm sure you're aware that you just declared war."

Jensen shrugs and rolls his shoulders, tugs his shirt back into place. "Wouldn't have it any other way."

"Except for the part where I am duty-bound to participate in any hare-brained scheme she comes up with to retaliate."

" _Especially_ for that," Jensen says, breathing easy on the tail-end of a laugh. It feels good. Right. Feels like home in a way he didn't realize he was missing until it smacked him in the face.

"Just remember you said that when you're sitting in the ER," Jared replies, his tone light rather than ominous. "C'mon, man. Let's get you a steak. Look like you're starved half to death."

He's not, not really, but that doesn't matter.

"Yeah, sure. Steak sounds awesome."

That blissful sense of belonging can only carry him so far. After an hour, Jensen's full up on steak and three-bean salad, the taste of Gen's botched experiment in honest-to-God authentic sweet tea clinging to his tongue no matter how many bottles of water he slams. After three hours and a winding series of conversation turns, he gets an itch in the soles of his feet. It's ridiculous. He knows it's ridiculous. Shit, he wants a family too, someday. There's just something about watching Annie and Lisa badger Jared about his procreation plans that makes Jensen yearn for escape.

Jared and Gen have only been married a few months, for chrissakes. Has nothing to do with the fact that he's currently single and not so much looking as dreading everything about the idea of looking. Really. It doesn't.

"Gotta take a piss," he says, a little too loud, and everyone looks at him like he sprouted antlers.

Jared frowns at him, a silent question that Jensen can't answer, so he shrugs instead and turns to wind his way through the clusters of people scattered like land mines between him and the French doors that lead into the living room. Inside, the population dwindles, the door snicking silently shut behind him. Jensen vaguely recognizes the couple huddled together on the loveseat as he passes, but not enough to place them. Much as he enjoys looking like an ass, he's grateful they seem content with a wave and nod before they turn back to their conversation.

Manners be damned, he needs beer. Most of the munchkins are out in the yard chasing each other with the squirt gun party favors Jared dispensed earlier anyway.

Even across the length of two rooms, Jensen can tell there's someone in the kitchen. Comes from knowing the acoustics of the place, he guesses. And as much as he doesn't want company right now, alternative pickings are slim since Jared locks the garage (and consequently all the back-up booze) down tight when there are underage, potentially sticky fingers afoot. When he turned his keys back over to Jay, Jensen had known the day would come he'd regret doing it.

It appears today is that day.

Kitchen it is.

The closer he gets, the more familiar the cadence. But it's not until his boots hit tile and he can see the two bodies perched elbow-to-elbow at the island that Jensen puts it all together.

"...and then she and Boots went through the Monkey Cave and they found _treasure_!"

Misha has his heels hooked on the lowest rung of the stool, the toes of his shoes tapping together, fingers crumpling their way through an abandoned stack of cocktail napkins. Even with his chin cradled patiently in the palm of his other hand and wearing one of the indefatigably indulgent looks he usually reserves for wayward fangirls, Jensen only sees boredom. Thankfully, the little one balanced on the stool beside him remains none the wiser. Jensen can't tell right off who she belongs to, but she looks to be six or seven and all limbs, her blonde hair cut in a short, simple style that swings wildly just below her chin.

This, he can handle.

"What kind of treasure?" he asks and skirts the island entirely to lean against the counter beside the fridge. He hasn't given up on his beer quite yet, and if the worst happens he knows the Syrah is still here somewhere. "We talkin' just gold, or were there diamonds too?"

That sharp little chin juts his direction, a pair of brown eyes turned on him with the laser focus only the young are truly capable of.

"Momma says it's not nice to stick your butt in when people are talking," she says firmly. "I was talking to Misha. He's teaching me Russian."

Clearly this is a very serious endeavor he's interrupted, so Jensen hides the smile that threatens behind his hand and a cough. Misha simply shrugs, head tilted and eyes half-lidded in a way that requires no translation. At least Jensen doesn't think so. Granted, he hasn't worked with Misha as long as he has Jay, but that doesn't mean he hasn't learned things. Like the fact that when Misha's uncertain, he only gets louder, wilder, more likely to do something unexpected. Or that when he's tired his tone hones down to surgical grade.

That's not what this is, so Jensen's more inclined to rescue Misha than the girl. Kids can be relentless and there's no telling how long they've been sitting there without outright asking.

"Lily has been regaling me with the globe-trotting exploits of Dora and her monkey," he says, brow quirking. "And teaching me Spanish."

If Jensen was a betting man, he'd put money on Misha being borderline fluent. It feels right.

"Really?" he asks, makes a show of taking this new bit of information under careful consideration. "I could use a tutor. Think I've forgotten most of mine from school."

Lily glares at him, sighs, then swings her legs until she can scoot off the stool.

"I'm gonna go play now," she announces abruptly, then stomps off in the direction Jensen just came from.

Jensen snorts. "Dude, I think I just got owned by a second grader."

Misha's answering smirk is warm around the edges as he watches her go. It doesn't track with Jensen's earlier assessment so it puts him slightly off-balance, makes him wonder if he stuck his nose where it wasn't wanted.

"Actually, no," Misha says. "You just got owned by an exceptionally precocious kindergartener."

"Way to make me feel better."

"I live to serve."

"Liar."

The face Misha makes in response comes from nowhere - lips tight and brow heavy - and instead of firing off an appropriately scathing comeback he lapses into fidgety silence, staring at the pile of creased cocktail napkins he's scattered across the countertop like they're supposed to answer some unspoken Misha-question. It's weird, yeah, but no more so than usual. Jensen leaves him to it.

With Lily gone there's no compelling reason to keep his hands off the beer.

It takes him a minute to forage through the half-empty containers of various macaroni and potato salads to liberate the six-pack he'd known would be lurking in the back. As a consequence, he loses Misha's decision to rejoin the land of the verbal in a clank of bottles.

Courtesy demands he ask, a half-swallowed, "What?" tripping off the end of his tongue as Misha pulls another face.

"Trust me," Misha says. "It doesn't bear repeating."

Jensen doubts that, because throwaway is not Misha's style, but lets it slide anyway, too grateful for the invention of twist caps and the fact that he's not going to have to hunt for a bottle opener to care.

A quick flick of the wrist and he's got the first one open. "Beer?"

"Oh, fuck me, yes." Misha says, reaching out to grab like a greedy toddler. "Please and thank you."

"Not here," Jensen murmurs. The sounds from outside are starting to die down, the squeals and tiny pounding feet giving way to the hushed voices of adults and the jangle of keys. A car starts in the front yard and that makes Jensen's mind up for him. In the end, he does rummage through the drawer for a bottle opener and snags his Syrah off the top of the fridge, just in case. "Try to keep up," he says, quirking a brow at Misha as he rounds the corner and sneaks off down the hall.

The door to his old room, third on the left, is shut tight - a silent warning to prying partygoers that Jensen happily ignores. Jared will forgive him, he's sure of that, and as much as he feels a sense of misplaced ownership for these four walls, he's not dumb enough to turn on the light. Lights attract attention and that's exactly what he's looking to avoid.

Misha presses in behind him, breath hot at the nape of his neck and whispers, "Lock it or leave it open?"

"Lock it," Jensen answers quickly, quietly. "Definitely locked."

"Jensen Ackles, are you trying to seduce me?" Coy on Misha is ten kinds of ridiculous at the best of times and Jensen's forced to stifle a laugh at the over-exaggerated flutter of lashes he catches out of the corner of his eye.

"You wish," he says and paces his way into the room to flop on the bed. He can still feel Misha's words on his skin like an echo. For the moment, he's content to ignore it.

The sun's slipped well past the horizon, the mini-blind blades painting stripes of orange and pink across the floor. It's subdued, but once his eyes adjust, it's light enough he can catalog the changes here too.

Boxes line the wall where his dresser stood and 20 gallon Rubbermaid bins cover the floor of the closet completely. Each of them boasts a simple label that reads "Kitchen" or "Books" in the same girly hand as the note on the front door, and Jensen realizes he's looking at the detritus of Gen's life in Los Angeles. The life she abandoned to move north and be with Jay. It's a moment, one that's probably too late in coming. Nonetheless, everything shifts slightly to the right and he understands -

"It's never going to be the same."

The bed dips beside him and he shakes with it, too wrapped up in his own shit to take note that his hand is empty again until he tries to take a pull off the non-existent bottle.

"Dude."

Misha's throat works around a swallow, then another, eyes flashing and completely unrepentant. Jensen wants to kick his ass. Or possibly kill him. Maybe one after the other since he's feeling ambitious.

" _Dude_."

He's still staring when Misha decides to come up for air, too baffled by the fact that Misha bogarted his beer in the first place to do anything about it. Water's one thing, but there are rules about booze. Rules. In a perfect world, Misha would apologize, maybe grab him a replacement.

Instead Misha says, "Not wise to offer things you aren't prepared to lose," and tips the bottle again in an apparent attempt to drain it dry.

In all fairness, he did offer, and it's not like the five beers currently weeping their condensation into the cardboard container wedged between their ankles are inferior. It's just the principle of the thing. A principle Misha doesn't seem to subscribe to.

"Remind me never to give you my keys," Jensen says and leans down to hook the neck of a bottle.

As soon as the final syllable leaves his mouth, Misha dissolves into a coughing fit. Coughing turns to laughing, laughing turns to awkward flailing and chest thumping that leaves two of the boxes closest the bed overturned. Even in the half light, Misha looks flushed - chest to cheeks - and he snorts around the mouthful of beer he's managed to hold onto in the midst of his apparent mental breakdown.

It's not that fucking funny.

Every last bone in Jensen's body screams at that he doesn't want to know what is, that Misha won't offer straight answers anyway, but Jensen can't not. Has to. Will always. Just like the fucking birds. The fucking birds he hasn't thought about for four fucking hours and could have lived happily without thinking about for the rest of his natural life.

But now he is, the absence of an answer burning silently at the back of his brain and stealing the thread of the conversation.

Misha's voice tugs him free, a raspy chuckle dripping with disbelief and a quiet, "Sometimes I wonder if you think things all the way through before you say them, Jen."

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Jensen twists his bottle open, ignoring the sharp slice of metal against his palm, and flicks the cap at the opposite wall. It clatters in behind one of the stupid Rubbermaid bins and he barely resists tossing up victory arms. He's not even sure why, but he shrugs and takes a celebratory sip anyway.

When he glances over to make sure Misha caught his championship-worthy aim, Misha's holding a tiny stuffed puppy. Correction: a tiny, purple puppy with sparkles.

By the time his brain catches up with the sight of it, a measure of the hilarity has died down and he manages to swallow his sip instead of spewing it. The fact that Misha's still staring at it like it has some improbable insight to impart doesn't help matters.

"Do you two need a minute? I can avert my eyes," Jensen says.

At which point Misha does that chuckle thing that gets lodged in the base of his throat and grins, but doesn't look up to meet Jensen's gaze. "Because I look the type to molest stuffed puppies?"

"Because I _know_ you're the type to molest stuffed puppies and that's something you can't fucking unsee."

Misha smiles. "Point taken," he says, squeezing the stuffed puppy between his palms as if to prove Jensen right. "I keep trying to understand them, but I'm starting to believe it's not my place to."

The puppy gets one last absent squish before Misha tosses it in the open box at his feet, sparkly purple mingling with pink and white and roan, a litter the likes of which the world has never seen. Jensen knows what it is, he gets his fair share of puppies now too. Ever since he flashed pictures of Ick to the world.

Jensen nurses his beer, compiling a mental inventory of the contents and pegs its origins as either Chicago or New Jersey.

"You mean the fans? Grateful as I am, I don't think I want to know," he says, and leans down to slide the lid back in place. It's not patently true, of course. But it is a question he stopped trying to answer a _long_ time ago thanks to the invasive nature of its subjects.

"Careful. That makes you sound like the boy who was born without a sense of adventure. We both know how that will end."

"I'm gonna go ahead and guess fire."

"Or feathers with a side of nudity. I'm not picky," Misha says, matter-of-factly and bends to trade his empty bottle for a full one. His cap goes flying the same direction as Jensen's and gets lodged on the top shelf of the open closet.

As distracting as Misha can be at the best of times, the word feather has become a trigger. Just like paper and bird and crane and a dozen other innocuous words that shouldn't matter but do. Jensen downs the rest of his bottle and slots it in beside Misha's empty, capping another without a second thought.

"It can get creepy though," he says and nudges the box of Jared's con spoils further away with a toe.

At his elbow, Misha fidgets restlessly, metal clanking against glass louder than it probably should thanks to his own heightened awareness.

"Ah yes," Misha says. "That only happens if you let it."

"Be creepy?"

"Sure. I happen to have a My Little Pony collection that would rival that of any five-year-old in the continental US and enough miscellaneous underwear to stock not three but four department stores with all their intimate apparel."

"And how does that not bother you?" Jensen asks, because he wonders. The indecent proposals have always bothered him. Always. And he's pretty sure it's not because he has clearer boundaries than a lot of people. Even when he hero-worshiped Troy Aikman back in the day, he would never have asked for a lock of fucking hair. But then he also has his agent donate every last crazy thing he receives at the conventions to appropriate charitable organizations.

It baffles him how easily Misha rolls with it, uses it and preens like a king peacock.

"Would they care if it did?"

"Doubtful."

"I rest my case."

So simple. Jensen takes another swig of his beer, considering, can't help but ask, "That's really it?"

Misha shrugs and wets his lips, then makes another one of those indecipherable faces.

"Pretty much. I never have seen the point in getting worked up over other people's idiosyncrasies. Got plenty of my own to keep me busy.

Which, yes, is true, but also not what he asked. For the time being, Jensen leaves it alone because he's not up for logical warfare with a completely illogical opponent right now. There are more relevant but related subjects to explore.

"So you've never been freaked out by a fan?"

"Probably not in the way you think," Misha mutters, lower lip never leaving the rim of his bottle."But if I say no it makes me the crazy one, right?"

"Or a liar, but that's known territory so at least you'd feel at home," Jensen says and shoots Misha a smirk that doesn't get returned. Misha's no more of a liar than he is, so it's odd that he doesn't banter back, doesn't quip a blue streak. Jensen's curious, of course he is, but there's no telling with Misha so he chews on his lip instead, silently working out how concise he wants to be about his current predicament. After a momentary mangling, he decides that Misha would probably still err on the side of mockery. Veiled references only then. "Dude, seriously. Clif told me there's this chick who's so fucking gone she thinks she's my wife. There's nothing about that that isn't creepy."

"According to some of the more enthusiastic, militantly non-minion contingents I have upwards of three thousand wives," Misha says, polishing off the final two swallows of his second beer and letting the bottle clank into place beside the others. And whatever else it is or could be, it feels like permission.

Jensen loses the next hour and the rest of the six pack trading war stories with Misha, the flicker of citronella candles on the deck outside the only thing that stands between them and total darkness. Somewhere along the way, the house goes quiet - no more slamming car doors or shrieking children, just the wet whir of the dishwasher clanking plates together. And even though he and Jared made more use of the drawer full of take-out menus and a stack of paper plates than they ever did the kitchen, the sound of it is almost like a lullaby.

The familiarity opens Jensen up in ways he'd rather not be when he's lubricated by booze and loose-limbed with exhaustion, and by the time he bothers to take notice, the silence inside the room has stretched on longer than it should have. When he glances at Misha, it's painfully obvious why.

Misha's asleep.

Of course Misha's asleep.

Jensen swallows a chuckle, relief winning out over his surprise that Misha managed to stick so long, be so still. Muffled or not the laughter shakes the bed and Misha's hand twitches, knuckles rasping against the blanket as his fingers flutter. Jensen's stomach goes weird then, and he's working his way up to an internal debate about the wisdom of mixing hops with all those mayo-based salads that sat in the sun most of the day when Jared slips silently through the door.

"Well that's disappointing," he mutters under his breath, fumbling for and flicking the light switch. "I was hoping for blackmail material."

Jensen squints against the sudden brightness, and whispers, "Like what? Naked thumb wrestling? You missed the puppy molestation hour." He keeps his voice pitched low even though he realizes there's no reason to. Maybe it's for his own sake, so he can go on pretending he didn't notice that Misha's breathing changed as soon as the tumblers in the door knob turned over. It was just really fucking quiet.

"What's the point in thumb wrestling if you're already naked?" Jared says.

And that - there are too many things wrong with that sentence for Jensen to even know where to start. So he hums and pushes out an easy breath, gives thanks to the lucky stars life granted him because Misha picks that moment to rejoin the land of the living.

"I wasn't aware of there being any other method to determine who tops," he says, voice rough with disuse, and smiles a smile that's probably supposed to be serene but twists over into mischievous at the last second. His lashes twitch against his cheeks and Jensen gets blindsided by a flood of images he can't quite put away in time. So he does the only sensible thing he can do. He freaks the fuck out.

The thing about freaking the fuck out is that it makes you look like a spaz. The head board thuds against the wall hard enough to leave a mark and Jensen winces.

"So, um. It's late," he says. It's not. "My call's at four," he adds, like that makes it any better. Jay has to be on set just as early.

Jared turns those stupid eyes on him, brows pulled together and mouth turned down, and Jensen's not any more in the mood to elaborate than he was before. He risks a glance at Misha, holds it long enough to absorb the fact his lids are still lowered before he finds a fascinating spot on the ceiling to get better acquainted with.

Whatever psychic shorthand they've developed must finally catch up, because Jared's face smoothes out abruptly and he shoulders in closer to the bed, nudging at one of Misha's ankles with a toe.

"Arise fair maiden and taketh thy slackass home," he says, and bends to snap his fingers in Misha's face.

Misha snaps back, his teeth clacking sharply together millimeters from Jared's fingertips and that's not even - good at all because the images are back, bursting firework-bright and now they involve Misha's lips and his fingers.

Jensen breathes.

"So yeah, I'm out-" he starts, but then Misha's looking at him and Jared's looking at him and it's like his entire vocabulary fucked off to Pluto.

Wisely, Jensen decides to follow, making it to his pickup in record time, the dew-kissed grass not registering until he almost takes a header and knocks himself out against the fender. Once safely there, he throws the truck's door open and coaxes her to life.

The gearshift is already fit into the curve of his palm when he sees it.

The sloppily creased wad of brown paper stuck under the windshield wiper should probably piss him off. And it does, abstractly. There are much less theoretical things to be concerned about right now though, namely whateverthefuck that thing with Misha just was.

So while he subconsciously catalogs a shape that might be a bear or a dog or some kind of mutant were-dog that Jensen doubts any origami artist worth a shit would bother committing to paper, the rest of his brain is breaking against a different reef. There's only so long he can tell himself not to think about something and expect it to work. The knowledge is already there - a flash of unwanted insight that turns Misha into something new and different, someone Jensen might want in new and different ways.

Of the choices presented, having an origami stalker seems much less terrifying. A small part of him wishes for indifference, an opportunity to pitch the scrap of paper into long grass at the end of Jared's driveway as he roars off into the night. Unfortunately, that's not the part that wins out.

Jensen allows himself a muttered, "Fuck" as he leans out the window to pluck the mutant were-dog free then settles in to the sweet sound of gravel kicking into the wheel wells.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Things aren't any better in the morning. On the upside, they're also not any worse. It comes as a small comfort when the top shelf of the bookcase in his living room resembles nothing more than a damned paper menagerie. The were-dog looks slightly more dog and less 'were' in good light and Jensen fingers the folds, the color of the paper worn through to white in places. Whoever made it obviously took their time, folding and re-folding until the corners matched and the right lines emerged, someone patient though not necessarily adept.

It feels wrong to destroy something so painstakingly crafted, so he hasn't pulled the dog apart yet, or the turtle. The cranes he'd cobbled back together through trial and error but the number of creases required for the others makes him a little dizzy to even think about. Now, with some distance between him and the find, Jensen can see the necessity of pulling them apart.

> i will touch you with my mind.   
> Touch you and touch and touch   
> until you give   
> me suddenly a smile, shyly obscene [[2]](http://docepax.livejournal.com/12308.html)

  
The passage scrawled inside the dog is both weirder and more disturbing in the simplest of ways.

> I will have you.

Those four words clue him in to the depth and breadth of what he's actually dealing with. It takes a specific kind of person to be so certain without encouragement, and suddenly he's wading through his list trying to find the floaters.

Before he drifts too deep, the doorbell saves him from catching the rip tide of his own suspicion, a long buzz that slots him back into his routine. Icarus paws at his shins, whining softly as he shoulders his bag. Jensen glances at the clock before he squats to give Ick a quick rubdown. Clif's a little early anyway, he can wait.

"Be good today, buddy," he says, smiling when Icarus arches into his hand. "Tell Selena to take it easy on you."

Icarus stares, tongue lolling, rear end sliding on the tile from wagging his tail so hard. Jensen has the sudden overwhelming urge to scoop him up and bring him along. Any other day he might, but Mondays are traditionally the hardest hitting, the schedule the most grueling. It's different with every director, but most want to get the tough stuff out of the way while the talent's still relatively fresh. Which means Mondays are a bitch.

Another long buzz sounds and Jensen frowns, turns his wrist over to look at his watch. Clif never bothers ringing twice. Must be a tighter schedule today than usual. He gives Ick one last pat and flicks the switch on all the lights but the one in the hall. It leaves a weird glow in his wake, a fresh crop of goosebumps prickling his skin as he backs out the front door and sets the alarm. Bumping into something solid on the stoop makes it worse, instinct taking over in the deep dark of pre-dawn, his elbow shooting out to land in the shadow's stomach.

The shadow grunts out a breathy, "Fuck," then staggers down and back until the motion sensors trip on the light above the garage.

When Jensen turns, he feels stupid. Awake, guilty, and very fucking stupid.

"Misha? What the hell?"

Misha holds up a hand, still bent at the waist and coughing as Jensen glances past him, sees the black SUV with the silhouette of Clif's head curved over the driver's seat and what must be Jared's on the passenger side. It throws him. Not just because he's usually the first-in, last-out but also because he took off in a kind of embarrassing hurry last night and someone in that car thought it would be a good idea to send Misha to the door.

Misha who just took an elbow in the gut. Shit.

"Jesus. Sorry, man. I didn't-" Jensen stammers, instinct also making him reach out to help. "You okay?"

His fingers fumble, clumsy with recently shaken off sleep and an unexpected adrenaline rush, but when they find a hold it happens skin to skin - the thin stalk of Misha's forearm flexing in his grip. It takes a lot more effort than it should not to snatch his hand back, and more than once he has to tell his brain to shut the fuck up. Misha's a friend. A friend he just gutchecked accidentally because he's a paranoid freak of nature. He bends to set his Thermos aside, obscenely grateful to find the contents still sloshing gently against the insulated walls, then lays a tentative hand against the flat of Misha's back. Jensen gets lost for a long stretch of seconds, the knobs of Misha's spine curved into the heel of his hand, the bunch of muscle and ribs beneath when he exhales and his wheezes transform into something else.

"So easy," Misha says, teeth glinting white in the bright fluorescent as he smiles and straightens.

A small part of him recognizes the humor, can track the reflection of it back down the months. Unfortunately, that part can't claim control of his mouth or his limbs.

Jensen pushes past roughly, irritated with himself as much as Misha, frustrated by his own reactions. Their shoulders bump, Misha twisting gracefully to absorb the blow and Jensen catches sight of that grin again, the one that says the joke's on him, the one he wants to wipe clean off Misha's mouth by any means necessary.

Thinking about the means only confuses the issue more, so Jensen has to settle for stalking down the drive towards the SUV.

He mutters, "Dick," under his breath as soon as he thinks he's out of earshot.

Misha's response comes from way too close - a snort and whispered, "Only when it suits me," that Jensen feels against the back of his ear. It's too fucking early and too fucking much on too little caffeine. To add insult to injury, Misha presses his abandoned Thermos into his hand before he moves away.

Wisely, Jensen keeps on walking.

Once they get to the car, there's a minor scuffle over shotgun. He wins, thank all that is holy. Jared's vibrating in the backseat like he downed a whole box of Sugar Smacks this morning and Misha's - well, Misha, and truth be told he's not feeling all that social what with the recent events piled on top of the running away fiasco. Clif grunts a cursory greeting and then gets them underway. The studio's only about twenty miles from his place, but he pops his earbuds in anyway then eases down into the seat to get that extra half hour of shuteye.

Even with his music cranked to tune them out, Jensen can hear the gentle rumble of Jared and Misha trading insults. It probably shouldn't lull him to sleep, but he doesn't traffic all that well in shouldn't where Jay's concerned. Or Misha for that matter. He drifts off easily to the sound of their voices and the rolling sway of the SUV taking curves just a hair too fast.

 

Jensen has a moment of blind panic when he starts himself awake - the bottom dropping out of his stomach as he scrambles and slaps his palm against the dashboard.

Rocks, walls of it not three feet from where his cheek was pressed up against the glass. Boulders and scrub brush and tiny eddies of runoff trickling down to the shoulder of a road they shouldn't be on. He glances in the rearview just to verify he is where he thought he was. Sure enough, Jared's slouched down behind him decked out in headphones and pounding on his PSP. Misha's alternately staring out the window and screwing with his phone. Their eyes meet in the mirror for a fraction of a second before Jensen averts his, running the back of his hand across his mouth in a compulsory drool check. Thankfully, he comes away dry.

Small favors.

Behind him, there's a quick rustle of fabric and a sharp intake of breath before Jared shouts, "Wha-oh!" and Misha murmurs, "Oh, thank fuck."

Apparently the Wonder Twins were getting sick of riding in silence.

He feels like Alice, through the looking glass with the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat and flamingo cricket. Everyone else seems to know exactly what's going on.

It sucks.

There are about a hundred questions tripping across the tip of his tongue, but he finally lands on one that will lead to all the other answers.

"Where are we?" he asks.

The results are predictable, if not particularly enlightening - Jared and Misha talking over each other until all Jensen catches are the words Disneyland and Magical Mystery Tour. Clif waits them out, guiding the SUV around a sharp hairpin with a practiced hand.

"'Bout ten miles south of Squamish," Clif says and sneaks a quick peek Jensen's direction. "You were down for the count."

"Yeah," Jensen replies, drags a hand through his hair. "Not sleeping all that great lately."

The clouds beyond Clif's window are bleeding pink to gold to white, the sun hidden by the soaring rock face beyond Jensen's. It answers when well enough, but what he can't pin down is why. Sure, he remembers vague references to another remote shoot, another lake tucked between mountain peaks that they _had_ to get on film.

The fact that he forgot about it being this week bothers him more than the lack of clothes and creature comforts. Worst comes to worst, he's got a whole trailer full of Dean's jeans he knows will fit. There's a hoodie and a hat in his backpack, toiletries in his trailer. Anything else he can pick up once they hit Squamish if given time or a production assistant to do so.

Unprepared equates to unprofessional though, and Jensen hates to think that his personal bullshit has started interfering with his ability to do his job.

Just. Fuck.

Misha seems to take the silence as a cue to shove his face between the front seats.

"You had no idea we were on location this week."

True or not, rational or not, it bothers Jensen to be read so easily. With fans, yeah, he takes care to show them only what he wants them to see. Real life's a whole different kettle of fish - a transparent kettle full of those weird ass transparent fish. Being on guard all the time is exhausting and amongst friends Jensen prefers to be taken at face value. By and large, that face happens to be an honest one. When it isn't, Misha's always the one who sees through the bullshit and calls him on it.

There's no win here. Nothing he can say that Misha won't twist, so Jensen keeps his mouth shut.

Not to be outdone, Jared shifts forward in his seat too, leather creaking, and says," Dude, seriously? You're like the most prepared person on the planet."

He isn't, never has been. There's prepared and then there's Prepared, and it requires a lot more effort and attention to detail than Jensen ever intends to expend to be Prepared. Just so happens he's better at remembering shit than Jared is most of the time.

Misha leans in further, the jut of his chin catching against Jensen's shoulder all scrape and stubble.

"That's really all you brought," he says, his gaze flicking to the backpack situated between Jensen's feet as he clucks his tongue. "Whatever will we do with you?"

"We are not doing anything with me. I'm aces. Just pack light is all."

It's stretching the truth at the best of times.

"Dude, you're two pairs of strappy shoes and a straightener away from being a girl."

"Says the fucknut who lugged a suitcase the size of a small car to Rome for a day."

Misha edges closer, wedging his shoulder between the seats, his nose in dangerous proximity to Clif's elbow and his face screwed up into sympathetic shapes that waver between sincere and - not.

"Poor kitten," he says. "Mi suitcasa es su suitcasa. Within reason of course." The corner of his mouth twitches twice before he adds, "Sorry. Within _my_ definition of reason."

Which, to be frank, is a much broader definition than Jensen's completely comfortable with because suddenly he's thinking about Misha's underwear, his subconscious settling in for a good long ponder on the ages-old question of boxers or briefs. Jensen kind of wants to punch Misha. Maybe a lot. In the face.

"Fuck you very much too, Boy Wonder. Told you twice already I'm not wearing one of your damned Sponge Bob T-shirts. Not even in the Canadian outback."

Misha huffs a laugh and sits back, says, "Suit yourself," softly, like he might actually give a shit.

Jensen bites back the compulsory apology because the last week has apparently been weird enough to drive him to rudeness. With any luck, the change of scenery will help, give him time to reap the spoils that close quarters have to offer. It's easier to investigate when all your suspects are occupying the same floor of a hotel in the middle of fucking nowhere.

It's an opportunity - one he's looking forward to taking advantage of when it fully presents itself.

By the time he and Jared wrap and get back to the hotel, it's ten 'til ten.

While today won't go down in history as the worst day ever, Jensen's still sporting a fantastic film of mud and corn syrup blood and his boots feel like they weigh about fifty pounds each and he's starving. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't be a big deal. Here though, the hotel restaurant closes at ten and the room service menu slims down to appetizers and alcohol half an hour later. Unless he wants to harass Clif or walk somewhere, he and Jared are both going to have to make do with the food they can get at the bar.

There are worse problems to have.

The wall of the elevator is cool at his back, grounding, and he watches the display shift from two to three as the bell dings and the doors slide open. He glances over at Jared who doesn't seem all that inclined to move, the sweat tracks cut through the dust on his face making him look more worn out than he probably is.

"Back here in twenty?" he asks, trying for a smile and mostly succeeding. He thinks.

Jared returns it, levering himself away from the wall on a grunt.

"It's too much to hope that the bar serves steak, isn't it?"

"Think that's probably about as likely as getting sweet tea, man," Jensen says, familiarity making his stomach knot up.

"Way to burst my bubble, Jen," Jared grumbles, but he's still smiling when he makes the hard left to head to his room. They're at opposite ends of the hall this time, and it's unusual enough for Jensen to take notice but not so much so he feels it needs mentioning.

Instead he just shouts, "Twenty minutes," at Jared's retreating back and accepts the hand he raises as an answer.

It takes Jensen less than that to strip out of his clothes and scrub himself pink. He even manages to scrape away the dirt and stage blood cocktail caught under his fingernails before he tugs on his hoodie and a pair of track pants he'd found shoved in the back of a drawer in his trailer. At some point he's going to have a problem with other stuff - socks and underwear - but he's pretty sure he can con Clif into running him down to the local superstore tomorrow between set-ups.

The message light on the phone flashes in his periphery when he sits on the end of the bed to pull on his sneakers, a bright red beacon that he ignores because it's probably just Selena calling to tell him she picked Icarus up and he's doing fine and that he owes her for the short notice. It's not like he can call her back now anyway since her kids are undoubtedly asleep. Regardless of the message content, it will sure as shit wait until he has food in his belly.

Jensen palms both key card and wallet, sliding them into his pocket as he slips out the door.

The cast and crew have commandeered most of the third floor, so the corridor buzzes with activity despite the hour. Several doors along the hallway stand ajar and he stops a couple of times on his way to the elevators to chat. Before long, he's spent another twenty minutes at it, his stomach trying really fucking hard to eat him from the inside out, but there's still no Jared.

Any other day Jensen might go bang on his door, make sure he hasn't fallen asleep. Today, he's not in the mood. Despite feeling more human than he did an hour ago, he's hungry and tired and still irritated at himself for forgetting they were making this trek to begin with.

Jay's a big boy. He can fend for himself.

The elevator ride back down is uneventful save the blasphemous Muzak version of Stairway to Heaven piped in through tinny speakers. Jensen finds himself humming along just to drown out the strains of a song that no one in their right mind would ever synthesize. In the lobby there's a quiet hum, an echo of the hallway upstairs that never quite matches its volume, small clusters of familiar faces milling around in mud-crusted boots. He waves without breaking stride, his stomach staging a full-on rebellion by now.

It's easy to find the bar, a modestly sized oblong box blocked off on one end of the restaurant so they can share a kitchen. Most of the high-tops are dirty, covered with half-eaten food on non-descript plates, beer glasses, and crumpled napkins, so Jensen doesn't have much choice when it comes to seating. He grabs the first one he comes to that's wiped down and plucks the small, sticky menu out from between the salt and pepper shakers, relieved to find that not only do they serve hamburgers, they play actual music instead of the Muzak shit he was subjected to in the elevator.

Across the room he hears the clanking of plates before he sees a tiny girl wrangling a bus tub. She looks too young to be tending bar, pixie-like features sharp in the glare of the big screen and neon, her dishwater blonde hair drawn up into a simple ponytail that bounces and shimmies when she tugs the cloth out of her apron to swipe the tabletop clean.

"Be with you in a minute," she says on the tail end of a sigh. It's obvious she's the only one working tonight and the rest of the horde has probably run her half-ragged.

Jensen bides his time, drumming his fingertips against the table and scoping out what they have on tap. He gets as far as the third handle before he sees them.

Cranes.

Two of them riding the ridge of the bar, both folded from grease-stained paper placemats spotted with ketchup. He doesn't make the conscious decision to stand up, not that he can remember anyway, but soon enough he has them in hand, his ass just starting to kiss the surface of his stool again.

His first instinct says to shove them in his pocket, wait until he's upstairs and can take his time to comb them for clues. Usually, his instincts don't stand a chance in the face of his urges - especially the need to know - but this time they win out, paper crinkling as he slides them in alongside his phone. A commotion at the opposite end of the bar makes him reconsider, laughter high and girlish tickling against his ears and when he looks up, Jensen understands why.

Misha's bent close, his smirk tripping between sly and sated as he flicks the bartender's ponytail back over her shoulder. It's a liberty Jensen would never take with someone he just met but Misha has boundary issues. Drunkenness only makes them worse and seeing as Misha finished his coverage around six, odds are that he's probably feeling really fucking good right about now.

He watches Misha lean closer, lips hovering just a breath away from her ear as he wavers on his feet. Whatever he says to her gets lost in the music and the sharp rattle of plates as the girl's neck flushes pink and she almost drops the bus tub. It's a move he's seen Misha make a thousand times over - inappropriately proprietary, completely indifferent to the answer that meets him after the fact because he's almost more interested in the reaction than the potential for sexual acrobatics.

Jensen's stomach lurches suddenly, and he's about to clear his throat to remind them both they have an audience when the bartender gives Misha a gentle shove.

"Maybe it's time for you to head up to your room. Sir," she says, but even from where Jensen's sitting he can tell she's biting her cheeks to keep from smiling.

Someone in the lobby shrieks, feet pounding past the open end of the bar, and if Misha answers her it's pitched too low for Jensen to catch. Not that it matters. And yet, he strains for the words without knowing why. Misha, of course, catches him staring before Jensen has the opportunity to pretend he isn't.

Getting caught has its own advantages. For one, he gets to watch Misha slink the length of the bar. On anyone else, it might be ridiculous, but the laws of nature and Misha aren't on speaking terms and he's just lithe enough to pull it off convincingly. His stride stutters though, when he's five steps away, his brow furrowed with some emotion Jensen can't immediately put a name to. If pressed he'd say Misha looks like he lost something, misplaced it in the jumble of plates and beer bottles. For a second, Jensen thinks, "Maybe," but in the next, Misha pats the pocket of his jeans and huffs a laugh, sliding his phone free just enough to make sure it's actually there.

The smile that chases the laugh means trouble.

But it also means that Jensen knows precisely who he's going to be dealing with before Misha perches on the stool opposite him. Considering the other uncertainties he's been fielding, it's a comfort.

When Misha says, "That'll be fifty dollars," what he really means is, "Enjoy the show?" He's used to being the king of this and every other fucking jungle he's ever walked into when he's drunk. Which, come to think, _is_ actually ridiculous, just not the annoying kind.

"Not sure you earned it. For that kind of bank I usually demand nudity," Jensen says, eyeing the bottle Misha's sliding idly against the scarred tabletop, his fingers wet with condensation. It only gets weird when Jensen can't figure out if it's the beer he's longing for or something else. On cue, the bottle moves, tipping up to meet Misha's mouth and Jensen catches himself this time, tongue already darting out to wet his own lips as he studies the motion of Misha's throat, the curve of his hand.

Unfortunately it seems Misha's observational skills trump the speed of thought even when he's drunk. Not five seconds later he laughs a dark little laugh and says, "A private encore can be arranged. If you so desire."

Jensen feels it when his brain begins to shut down, the slow unspooling of his sanity as it wraps around that particular notion and sticks. He's too worn down, too hungry to shuffle it aside with a feint or sleight of hand, to displace the thought by wondering where Jared is or who the cranes in his pocket belong to. Life would be easier if he could.

Instead he stares silently at Misha's elbow, tracing the blue plaid pattern of his shirt cuffed around it until Tiny Bartender clears her throat a couple feet away.

"What can I get started for you?" she asks, sharp tap of pencil lead to paper acting as punctuation.

It figures that of all places, he'd be having a crisis of what-ever-the-fuck this crisis is in public when he's required to actually say things. As a stop-gap, he goes with licking his lips again, trying to work his way around the lump in his throat by force.

Turns out there's no need because Misha in all his inebriated grandeur turns to her and says, "Meat and beer. Something leafy or at least green to assuage his ridiculous gastro-guilt."

Tiny Bartender frowns at him, then Misha, then back at him. When she opens her mouth to ask whatever it is she feels she needs to, Misha makes a shooing motion that she obeys without protest.

"How do you do that?" Jensen asks, which is awesome, since at the very least it means there's been no permanent brain damage.

"Do what, exactly?"

"Make people do shit by being a prick."

Misha hums, a warm, thoughtful sound that gets lost under the opening strains of the hair metal ballad queuing up on the sound system, and Jensen tries very hard not to think about - well, anything. Especially not Misha and his prick.

But then Misha drops his voice an octave or ten and says, "Wouldn't you like to know?" in a way that leaves Jensen torn between breaking his nose and other much less fathomable things.

Jared saves him the trouble of trying to answer.

"Sorry," he mutters, footsteps fast and heavy.

Jensen checks his watch, knowing that it's a dick move when he does it. Considering it's been almost an hour since they parted ways and half an hour since Jay was supposed to meet him at the elevator upstairs, he's earned this much asshole tax and then some. At least Jared looks contrite when he swings in behind Misha to snag a stool and drag it into place between them. Jared must catch sight of the clock hanging over the bar when he does because he curses and apologizes again once he settles in.

"Gen set fire to the kitchen," is the only explanation he offers before he reaches across the table for the menu.

Jensen's, "On purpose?" comes out the same time as Misha's, "Cry for attention?" and Jensen glares.

Jay must have more practice at ignoring Misha, because he manages to answer without skipping a beat. More than likely, it's an inverse correlation to how much time Misha spends ignoring - or trying to ignore - Jared when they're filming. Odd that it doesn't work that way for Jensen.

When Jared says, "No, not on purpose," it comes across a little bitchier than it probably should, but it's late and they're both tired and he's probably worried about Gen. "I ordered a new fridge," he continues, "one of those French ones. She said she'd always kind of wanted one but never had a kitchen that needed it. It was supposed to be a surprise."

Misha snorts around a swallow of beer. "If nothing else, you managed that."

Jensen kicks at his shins beneath the table, but either Misha's a mind-reader or he's gotten predictable in his old age because he doesn't make contact. Or, he does, but scraping his ankle against the leg of the stool doesn't really count. As consolation, he squares a heel against one of the cross braces of Misha's stool and gives it a hearty shove. Misha rocks in place but doesn't slide off, so it's not as satisfying as it would otherwise be.

Shame.

Jared frowns at him, then Misha, then back at him again just like Tiny Bartender did. It's more subtle, but also more perceptive and Jensen wants to dig behind that expression and find out what the fuck Jared thinks he knows. He's tired of people looking at him like that.

Quickly as it came though, the frown disappears leaving behind a mask of worry and exhaustion.

"Anyway," Jared presses on, "The guy who installed it screwed the pooch." Misha coughs. "And no, Misha, I don't mean literally. Thanks for playing."

"So your new fridge is on fire?" Jensen asks.

"Just the wall behind it. Something with the circuit the old fridge was on and an overload and the breaker didn't trip. There's an electrician coming out in the morning."

And that's when Jensen realizes he can't even be pissed off about Jay being late. He still wants to be, and that in and of itself makes him a shitty friend.

Then Misha stretches his arms up over his head and yawns, and Jensen does not notice the wide band of belly bared above his belt. As it turns out, not noticing something is just as distracting as noticing it, and so he misses whatever Jared allegedly said while it was happening.

"Fascinating as this all is, I think I'll leave you two to knit tea cozies and swap recipes amongst yourselves. There's mischief afoot," Misha says, pushing up off his stool. His gaze flicks briefly past them out into the lobby and Jensen thinks he may fall over on his own once he has his feet, but in the end he just leans a little too far to place his empty bottle on the bar out of their way. He sobers abruptly, hand splayed against the curve of Jared's shoulder before he adds, "I'm glad Gen's okay," and stalks off.

Jensen tells himself twice that even in the face of terrifying new not-quite revelations there are lines he refuses to cross.

Watching Misha wander away is one of them.

Jared has no such qualms it seems, but the furrow creeps back between his brows as he follows Misha's meandering progress across the lobby.

"Don't think I'll ever get over what a nutcase Misha can be."

"Says the man who didn't walk in on him half naked and elbow deep in glow-in-the-dark finger paint."

Jared smiles and slides around the table to take the stool Misha just vacated.

"Everyone has hobbies."

Tiny Bartender appears at his elbow then, a frosted bottle of Misha's brand of beer clutched in one hand and a plate balanced on the other. He's loathe to admit it, but the cheeseburger and mixed greens look like a slice of heaven when she sets them down.

His stomach plays it a little less coy, growling loudly as soon as ceramic strikes wood.

She waves off his thanks with a smile, turning her attention to Jared who says simply, "Yes," and points at Jensen's plate. With any luck the grill's still warmed up.

The burger tastes as good as it looks, thick and juicy, and he only has to raise an eyebrow at Jared's incredulous, "You're really gonna eat in front of me," to shut him up. There's forgiveness and then there's madness. Jensen chooses the way of sanity, at least for now. He nods his way through his half of the conversation while Jared relates the rest of Gen's harrowing battle. How the dogs went nuts over the smoke alarm and that the sheetrock will have to be replaced.

Mostly he just focuses on chewing and swallowing, finding his way back to center. But there's a small part of him that can't get over how much things have changed and how fast. It's stupid and childish. He _knows_ better. And it's not like they partied all that hard before. It's just -

It's never going to be the same.

Jensen keeps himself busy with the burger until he can't anymore, the last bite polished off too quickly when he licks a spot of mustard off his thumb. The beer goes down smooth and cold behind it, the fruit-infused afterburn clinging to the back of his tongue. As it turns out, Misha has decent taste.

Go figure.

Tiny Bartender takes about half as much time to show with Jared's food as she did with Jensen's. It lends credence to the theory that the grill was already warm, sure, but it also gives him ammunition to tease Jared mercilessly about preferential treatment and the trappings thereof.

Jensen's winding up to do exactly that when his pants vibrate. More specifically, his phone does and when he reaches into his pocket to slide it out, he comes away with two crumpled cranes in tow. No use hiding them now they're out in the open, but he does his best to make it look casual when he tosses them on the tabletop anyway. Making a bigger deal of it will only complicate matters that are already complicated enough, thank you very much.

He gives Jay a minute to choke and chuckle, content to delay the inevitable ribbing as much as he's allowed. It works a little too well. Jared squints at the birds for mere moments before he goes on chewing, the movement of his jaw slowed to half speed. Almost like he's trying to choose his words, let the lettuce buy him time.

Interesting.

Try as he might, Jensen can only come up with two reasons that Jared, of all people, would tread so carefully.

The first is to spare someone's feelings. While Jay's proven countless times that he cares, their friendship has never been about pulling punches. They make fun of each other's failings. Keep each other honest. Put each other back together when the seams start to unravel. Jared knows better than to pull that shit with him. They aren't kid glove guys.

The alternative is worse, because it means his best friend's getting ready to lie to his fucking face.

Jensen busies himself with his phone, trying to work through the logic in his head while Jay does his very best impression of a cow chewing cud. As it turns out, the text message came from Selena - or, not Selena but an 'anonymous' source demanding ransom with a picture of Ick imprisoned behind a baby gate attached. It's just what he needed. And even though he can't enjoy it fully, Jensen allows himself a small smile and a minute to wonder who the hell is to blame for the flashing light in his room if not Selena. Bigger fish to fry now, though. Time to do old Captain Ahab proud.

So long as he doesn't drown.

Or get eaten by a whale.

Jared swallows.

"So," Jensen says, spearing a hefty forkful of his own greens. "Let's just get the lie out of the way first. In my experience it makes the truth easier to find."

The corner of Jay's mouth twitches, beer bottle caught in stasis half way between the table and his lips.

For an actor, Jared sucks _ass_ at this. Thankfully, Jensen does not. Waiting isn't any more of a hardship for him than breathing, so he's got all the time in the world. He shoves the monstrous mouthful past his lips, savors the tang of vinegar and mustard, the bitter bite of endive against the barely-there base of spinach. And he waits.

But Jared just says, "I don't know what you're talking about," and shovels another scoop in, doesn't even have the good grace to look guilty as he does it.

Jensen picks at the label on his beer bottle, willing to give Jay the benefit of the doubt as long as he's able. Doubt runs out when he plucks one of the misshapen paper creations from between their plates and Jared's eyes follow it like it's on fire.

He knows something.

"Really? 'Cause it looks like you might."

Jared shrugs and chews, glances over his shoulder at the big Wurlitzer sitting dark in the corner, takes time to catalog the minutiae of every bottle stacked against the wall behind the bar. What he won't do is look Jensen in the eye. And Jensen's done being dicked around tonight.

"Right," he says, palming his phone off the table and back into his pocket. The cranes follow closely, something sticky rubbing off on the back of his hand as he thrusts them in after. It's late - much too fucking late for high school bullshit and Jared's unexpected Marceau act. So Jensen does the sane thing and tosses back the last swallow of his beer. He can't say for sure if the wave of exhaustion that washes over him is symptom or side-effect, but it doesn't really matter.

He's done.

With a sigh, Jensen strips a couple of bills out of his wallet and tucks them under the lip of the plate. It should be more than enough to cover both dinners if need be, but right now he's not particularly inclined to wait for change.

"See you in the morning, Jay."

As he walks away, he hears Jared say his name once but with the late night bustle in the lobby, it's easy to pretend he doesn't. Even if doing it makes him a bitch.

The room's dark when Jensen turns the deadbolt behind him, nothing but the reflected glare of streetlights kicking up off the rain soaked parking lot to greet him. He remembers the placement of the phone on the nightstand because it's part of his job to notice things, evaluate and find the right stride to fit the blocking. No need though, to notice the message indicator or the fact it's not blinking.

That's one answer Jensen already has.

He'd made the mistake of stopping at the front desk on his way through the lobby. Since the light on the phone obviously wasn't Selena's doing, he thought there might be new pages for tomorrow maligning in a cube behind the desk downstairs. Most PAs would have stuck them in a manilla envelope and slid them under the door. There are new faces this year though, and one method was no better or worse than the other.

Anyway.

What he thought doesn't make a damn bit of difference because when he'd asked the night manager if there were any messages for him at the front desk, she'd wrinkled her nose, jabbed at a button behind the counter, and pushed a very different kind of paper across the counter at him.

A black, beetle-shaped piece of paper to be exact.

Jensen tosses it and the two cranes from the bar on the desk and decides, very pointedly, that morning will be soon enough to worry about their origins and undoubtedly innuendo-fueled offerings. Instead of pondering the three ring circus his life has become in the past week, he roots himself in routine. Peeling the hoodie off over his head, Jensen pads into the bathroom, the tile cool beneath bare feet. Two handfuls of water splashed across his face and thirty seconds with his trusty travel toothbrush make all the difference in the world.

Given the ridiculous length and complexity of this particular day, Jensen's tempted just to pass out - pull the covers up to his ears until they call the manager for the master key and kick him out of bed because he missed call. He's better than that though. So he slips his laptop out of its sleeve and pokes at the power button, spends the boot time sifting through the promotional materials scattered across the desk until he finds the information for the hotel's wireless.

He doesn't look at the paper animals lined up between the room service menu and table lamp. Can't and won't. If he does, he'll never get to sleep. In his experience, there's a lot of real estate between 'not right now' and 'never', and he'd rather live somewhere in that limbo tonight than be stuck staring at a bunch of cryptic chicken scratch designed to seduce him until the sun comes up.

Just because he's not immediately bound for an unconscious state doesn't mean he can't get comfortable. He can. He will. He's fucking earned it.

The track pants, of course, are the first to go and Jensen shucks them quickly, slinging them across the arm of the wingback in the corner. SportsCenter is the second order of business, muted for now because he's not all that interested in the hockey stats this early in the season. Finally, he snatches one of the pillows from the head of the bed and stretches out on his stomach with it tucked under his chin, the touchpad of his laptop slick and gleaming under his fingertips.

His mom, God love her, is the one and only reason for screwing with the laptop tonight at all. They'd played phone tag yesterday morning before he left for Jared's and broken down to base elements, his last message had been a rambling summary of his week followed by a promise to call during the dinner break Monday. A promise that he'd unintentionally reneged on since they hadn't had a break.

Semantics.

For a thirty second stretch, Jensen actually considers telling her about the origami, the stalker, Jared's probable involvement - everything he'd left out of the voicemail and some things he hadn't yet guessed at when he left it. When he looks up from tapping idly at the keyboard, there's a collection of gibberish splashed across the body of a new email he doesn't remember starting. Most of it could only be considered sentences by the most lenient of definitions. Some not even then. The vast majority has to do with were-dogs and dirty prose, his frustration over not being able to flush out the culprit.

The rest makes less sense, hiccups of adjectives and nouns strewn in amongst the rest that tug at his stomach and make him think about things better left to the dank corners of his imagination. Not a word of which is fit for a message to his mother.

Jensen learned long ago that sometimes the backspace key is man's best friend. No offense to Icarus.

When he selects the contents of the message and hits delete, the words duplicate instead of disappearing. Which is - weird. He tries again, adding the second set of text to the selection. It works. Sort of. All but fifteen of them vanish obediently. Those that remain, though, are huge and red and strobing on the display without quite tripping over the line into full-on flashing.

Blue. Blue. Blue. Mine. No. Crane. Shadows. Bow. He. Yes. Curve. Let it go. Know.

Jensen slaps the lid shut without powering the laptop down and slides it over the edge of the bed. The floor has more give to it than he remembers there being and the carpet squelches as it takes the weight of both the computer and his hand. He pats it gingerly, trying to figure out where the water's coming from, if the AC unit roaring away under the window has sprung a leak. His fingers come away dry.

It's fucking weird. Weird enough to drive him to early slumber anyway.

The remote vibrates in his hand when he grabs it to flick the TV off and the bedspread he could have sworn was a non-descript blue floral looks green and plaid no matter how furiously he rubs at his eyes.

When the knock comes, Jensen feels like he should be surprised but he isn't. His gut twists again, an echo of the tenuous tug from before. Briefly, he considers letting the knocker stay secreted beyond the pitted blue steel of the door. But his curiosity wins out in the end and he crosses the still squelching stretch of carpet with purpose.

The click of the deadbolt is just as heavy and metallic as he expects it to be, the tumblers in the knob groaning when he twists his wrist. Instead of sticking like logic says it might the door flies open of its own accord, impossibly weightless, missing the tip of his nose by no more than a quarter inch.

He also feels like it should surprise him to find Misha standing in the hall.

It doesn't.

Misha's state of undress does - bare feet and legs and chest, but even those can be explained away by the bright orange swim trunks slung low on his hips and the faded pink towel caught in the bend of his elbow. Jensen could have sworn the pool was outdoors instead of in though, and knows for a fact the staff would frown on anyone using it at this hour.

Misha smiles.

"Something I can help you with?" Jensen asks.

He starts to lean against the doorjamb but the paint has gone tacky when his elbow lands. It takes a minute to peel the skin away and when he does the texture's off, just wrong enough to raise his hackles. Rubbing his forearm makes it worse, the flesh there red and blotchy when he investigates, poking to see how far the hives go. Suddenly he's aware of his _own_ state of undress, the chill of the air and the well-worn cotton of his favorite boxer briefs, and he's not sure which is worse - that or the fact that Misha's still smiling wide and silent.

Jensen can't quite decide if the silence is godsend or harbinger. Creepy ain't even a question.

The rash on his arm tingles as it spreads, and he's grateful for the distraction. The stillness with which Misha's standing creeps him out almost as much as the silence. Almost. If anyone asked, Jensen couldn't say why he's able to track the progress of the inflammation with microscopic precision, but he can. Especially when the back of his hand sears hot, a series of angry pink blisters blooming across his skin.

"Ought to have someone look at that," Misha says, still smiling, still just as creepy doing it.

"You offering?" Jensen asks, incredulous. Misha shrugs and does that Gumby thing with his face, the corners of his mouth pulled so far down they look poised to slide right off the edge of his jaw.

"A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell," Misha answers finally, chest heaving on a sigh.

Again, Jensen feels like it _should_ bother him - both the content and the context of Misha's statement. It doesn't. For some unknowable reason it makes complete sense.

So he shuffles aside when Misha presses in, grabs at the door handle just to have something to hang on to. Their bare shoulders brush as Misha crosses the threshold and the spots on his skin flare bright and hot. Blinding. So much so he loses control, vision gone dark for a handful of terrifying seconds. Then the tiny hallway smashed between the closet and the bathroom erupts in a spray of sparks so tangible that Jensen glances up, trying to figure out who the fuck thought welding in his hotel room in the middle of the night was a good idea.

There's nothing there and when he levels his gaze, his sight's back to normal. Correction. His sight has returned, sure, but there's nothing about what he's seeing that qualifies as normal. Misha's rooted, smile faded down to a quiet little twist of lips that anyone else might read as indifference. Jensen knows better. But then Misha's also standing too close, Castiel close, their noses no more than an inch shy of bumping. His hands, Jensen realizes belatedly, aren't stilted on his hips anymore either, but only because they're cupped against either side of Jensen's face, every whorl of every fingerprint marked out against his cheekbones in heat.

In this case, there's no room for should anymore. He _should_ have noticed, but didn't. Just like he should have noticed that Misha wasn't damp even though he'd presumably been at the pool. Or that Misha's skin is soft and smooth and taut and - that he _should_ back the fuck off and breathe despite the fact he really doesn't want to.

The thought is too true for this rabbit hole he's tumbled down, too real to hang onto when Misha licks his lips and sways closer.

"The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness," he whispers, and Jensen's caught too firmly between puzzled and pissed to protest the mouthful of Misha's tongue that follows.

It's both nothing and everything like he imagined, if he had actually imagined. He hasn't. But his ears are ringing, his heart thumping, the skin on his arm sizzling down to cinders, one big bright pink blister that Jensen couldn't care less about because Misha's kissing him.

Misha's kissing him.

And then he's not.

The ringing makes sense first. Jensen can vaguely make out the oblong lump of his phone, enough to tell who's calling. Jared's face blinks on the screen in time with the jangle. He starts to reach, but just as his fingertips land, the ringing stops and Jensen's left half asleep with a face full of keyboard and an inconvenient hard-on.

In retrospect he can reason through it, the dream obvious in the string of oddities his mind had tried so desperately to tame. As much as Jensen wants to explain them away, remind himself that he'd once dreamt of using a celery stalk to brush his great aunt's dead dachshund's teeth, he can't.

The dream lingers - the burn in his arm where it's tucked bloodless beneath his body, the frantic whump of his heart in his chest as the adrenaline works its way through his system. Mostly though, it's the shape of Misha's mouth tattooed against his lips, hot and slick and tasting exactly like the beer he'd tossed back at the bar earlier.

He blinks at the clock, the numbers smearing out into a blob that reads 3:23. Their call tomorrow may not be until ten, but Jay knows the rules as well as he does. Unless someone dies or needs bail money, the moratorium on phone calls begins promptly at midnight. Truthfully, Jensen can't decide whether to kiss or kill. There's no telling where the dream might have led, but wherever it was headed he's pretty sure his subconscious was the only one ready to go there.

Almost the only one.

But then, his dick has always been a contrary little bastard. In this particular instance, he's determined not to give it the satisfaction of being right, so he slaps the lid of his laptop closed for real this time and deposits it safely on the desk. Experience dictates that if he just turned over, he'd be less aware and as a result it would be more likely to go away. The only problem is that the slow, familiar roil in his gut seems to agree - the one that says he should give in, put his hands on himself with Misha still lodged in the sizable cracks of his subconscious.

Jensen rolls over anyway, pillow tucked tight against the back of his neck, and ignores it, tries to go back to sleep.

As soon as he closes his eyes, he drifts back down into the current of the dream, his awareness and purpose altering it in a thousand minute but instantly recognizable ways. For one, Misha feels more real, the sharp curve of hipbone more solid in Jensen's grip. Jensen himself can't tell yet whether he's pushing or pulling, but Misha makes a noise anyway - a dark little chuckle that gets choked off in a hiss when Jensen flexes his fingers.

Misha shifts closer and when he does Jensen feels everything, nothing more than the hard line of Misha's cock pressed against his thigh.

Dreaming works on very different principles, he knows that logically. In practice, it's disorienting to suddenly find himself not just horizontal but in his bed at home with Misha splayed beneath him. More confusing is how much he wants it, needs it, the ache in his chest bright and fierce when Misha's lashes flutter back, his eyes incandescent in the dark, and he says, "Tick tock, Jensen," tongue curled around the name like it knows things.

Then there are deft fingers, slender and strong, curling other places and Jensen starts awake.

The clock on the nightstand seems to think it's only 4:58, but there's no way in hell he's going back to sleep. Not now, maybe not ever. Setting aside the guy thing, on-set entanglements are a very, very bad idea. Sure, Gen and Jared had pulled it off, but that's because Jared's stupid and Gen's forgiving and - fuck, he's not actually thinking about this.

Not.

Because the guy thing can't be set aside, no matter how progressive he presumes himself to be or how vocally he will defend the right of two dudes to get it on. Things have happened before. He lived in Hollywood for fucks sake, spent years on daytime television before he was wizened enough to truly handle it. But an active attraction to a dude, one that might delve deeper than skin, is a brave new world. That's not even taking into account the fact that it's Misha. Misha, who could not be called average by the stretch of anyone's imagination. His abstract fondness and joie de vivre, his sharp tongue and sharper wit, his unapologetic otherness all held together by a constant, low-level amusement for the rigidity of the human race.

Misha comes part and parcel with complications even Satan would have a hard time justifying.

Jensen blames the underpants for this. It's not the sort of offer you extend to anyone and although Misha never officially extended anything, the implications were there and are apparently still there planting naked landmines in Jensen's brain.

He needs a diversion, something to hit reset on this perilously circuitous train of thought. Luck feeds Jensen the answer, his gaze searching and quickly landing on the cranes. Their wings are crumpled, necks bent over, but next to the beetle they're beautiful right down to the last grease stain. Apart from obviously being a beetle, the bug looks amateurish. Almost like he's dealing with two different folders, though the chances of that so slim as to be non-existent.

Curious.

Since sleep seems out of the question, Jensen happily abandons pretense and swings his legs over the side of the bed. His dick throbs as he stands, the weight of it urgent against the soft cotton of his boxer briefs. Just one more in a long line of things that need ignoring, he thinks, shuffling over to the desk.

The laptop sits idle, fans whirring quietly to keep it cool.

Research it is.

Jensen settles in the chair carefully, mindful of his proximity to the edge of the desk as much as the unflagging erection. Nonetheless, he ends up having to adjust himself twice, all knuckles and muttered curses before he finally gets comfortable.

The cranes get deconstructed first because they're easy - head and tail flipped out and under, flaps pulled back. Inside the first there's an address and phone number scribbled above what his brilliant deductive skills tell him is a day and time. Holmes would be proud.

> 395 Kingsway  
> (604) 555-8576  
> Sat 11P

He flips the laptop open, tapping it awake with a steady hand. Everything seems slow, the browser launching, the search running, the map compiling. It's so beyond frustrating he can't see straight, and more than once he's tempted to give up and go jack off in the shower like the fine upstanding, all-American boy he's supposed to be.

The mental movie he knows would accompany such a venture makes him think twice.

After what feels like a millennia, the street view finally loads to reveal a squat black building with a wide neon sign slapped against the brick. A venue. Not one he recognizes and not one he'd probably visit if given the choice, but desperate times.

Jensen peels a sheet off the hotel stationery and painstakingly transcribes the information before putting the bird back together. A search on the club's name turns up a website, a schedule, and an artist that he adds below the details on the gig. He stops short of Googling the band, then reconsiders.

Maybe he's coming at this all wrong. Maybe the cranes are bigger than themselves, bigger than whatever cryptic comment gets scrawled inside. Maybe instead of collecting bread crumbs he should take a step back and figure out what kind of person might be dropping them.

Maybe if his dick would behave he could get some shuteye instead of spending his precious down time hunting ghosts.

Jensen diligently types the band's name in the search box.

The results that surface are not what he expected. Apparently, they play punk-infused folk laid atop an undercurrent of funk, their influences ranging from The Replacements to Dylan. While not entirely in line with his own tastes, it's more refined, more evocative than he'd have imagined a note-passing stalker might listen to.

He'd have gone to the show either way, but knowing that it might not blow helps.

Inside the second crane he finds a passage that has absolutely nothing to do with him or the ridiculous paperbound courtship.

> I know myself; I've learned to hear like a psychiatrist.  
> When I speak passionately,  
> That's when I'm least to be trusted.
> 
> It's very sad, really: all my life I've been praised  
> For my intelligence, my powers of language, of insight-  
> In the end they're wasted- [[3]](http://docepax.livejournal.com/12308.html)

Words so personal, so internalized that it's obvious he was never meant to have these, see these. It makes Jensen question them all, especially their purpose. Were any of them meant for him or was it all a matter of chance? Was he just in the right place at the right time? Was Cheyenne responsible for tucking the crane in his jacket pocket too?

No way to know without asking, and no way to ask without looking like an obsessive-compulsive freak.

The other, more provocative, specimens are the only ones he can say with any certainty were intended for his eyes - the turtle in his trailer, the dog under his wiper blade, and now the beetle. Jensen refolds the second crane and tucks it in alongside the first, resolving to take another look at the ones littering the top of his bookcase when he gets home.

If he's right, it changes everything.

The beetle gives him pause. So far neither method nor madness have made a damn bit of difference in the state of things, the weight between his legs just as insistent as when he sat down. It's strange enough to pay attention to whether he wants to acknowledge it or not. Healthy sexual appetite notwithstanding, he's not eighteen anymore and so usually has a lot more control over the how long, when and why. And while he may not be actively thinking about the dream, his body doesn't seem to be coming along for the ride.

Jensen knows deep down what awaits him if he peels apart the beetle's paper carapace, that it won't help, couldn't possibly.

Curiosity inevitably wins out.

It takes longer to unfold the beetle, the paper ragged at the corners where it's been undone and redone already. Again the handwriting matches despite the vast differences in model quality, a fact that leads him to believe that while the cranes are compulsory, the other animals require time and practice to produce. It also implies a specific kind of person outside the words - careful, conscientious, tenacious with unfamiliar tasks.

As he suspected, the words paint an entirely different, though not contradictory, picture.

> I find you in the spaces between -  
> the slope of your neck  
> the cut of your chin  
> the stillness that settles in your shoulders when you think you're alone.  
> I want you in the spaces between -  
> your hands  
> your lips  
> your tongue  
> your teeth  
> your passion turned on me with purpose but not thought.  
> I need you in the spaces between -  
> to drive me to madness  
> to possess and be possessed  
> to see  
> to know  
> to covet in all the forbidden ways.  
> Someday soon, I will find you in the spaces between. 

 

Scrawled beneath it, there's another date and time, another place.

> Sun 9A, Buntz Lk

Having a guaranteed opportunity to put a face and name to the culprit is all well and good, but that's not where his eye lingers.

On the third pass, he realizes he's touching himself, another squirming adjustment turned into something more. And Jensen lets it, gives himself over to the sensation because he can. Because this has nothing to do with dreaming. There's a real person on the other end of these words, whether they reveal themselves or not. Someone who wants. Someone who needs.

Jensen needs more than he's ready to own up to and this is better, safer - a carefully constructed fantasy replacing something, someone he would never-

So he doesn't. He uses the overactive imagination God gave him - sculpts her face from thin air, wide eyes, slender nose, pouty lips, long wheat-colored hair. He takes care to make her new and steers clear of any features that might remind him of someone else, her voice in his ear throaty but decidedly female.

It's only after he has the image firmly established that Jensen palms his dick for keeps, shimmying out of his underwear until they're caught in a bunch around his knees. His ass sticks to the chair and the arms of it dig into his thighs, but he can't risk losing her in the journey to the bed. The words spool through his head and he pictures the way her mouth would shape them, the graceful "O" that makes him want to slide his thumb across the curve of her lower lip and push in. Instead he slicks his thumb over the head of his cock and draws down, feels the sizzle start, urging him faster.

All things considered, he knows he won't last long. Here, with only himself to act as witness, he can almost admit the why, name the awkward ache that skitters under his skin.

Connection.

And so it isn't the vision of his manufactured shade that pulls him over the edge, but wanting to be wanted. Needed. In point of fact, the imaginary girl disappears before he takes the tumble, golden hair shot to ribbons on the tide of impulses sweeping from brain to groin and back again. At the end, when he's finally coming apart at the seams with a grunt and a shuddering sigh, the only things that stick are the sparks firing against the backdrop of his eyelids, a pair of grey blue eyes, and a short shock of wild, dark hair.

It takes Jensen a full thirty seconds to figure out how well and truly fucked he is, but he gets there.

Eventually.


	5. Chapter 5

By Saturday afternoon, all Jensen really wants is a break. He's spent the last four days buttoned up tighter than the Queen's guard at Buckingham, but even his best efforts hadn't been enough to satisfy the natives completely. So, of course, he'd exhausted most of those four days and himself trying to make the awkward glances tossed Misha's way seem less awkward and the stilted conversations he'd had with Jared less stilted.

As far as he knows, it worked. If not well, at least well enough for Jared to let him vacate the passenger seat without answering a barrage of questions. In Jensen's book, that counts as a win.

Right now, there are more important things to worry about. Namely, what he's going to say when he catches his friendly neighborhood folder with their proverbial pants down.

He feels good, might even say great. Certainly better than he has in a week, because tonight he's got the upper hand. Given the wildly different content concealed inside the cranes he'd found at the bar, Jensen can only assume they weren't meant for him. Whoever it is, he's pretty sure they're not expecting him and will therefore be easier to find, easier to pin down when he does.

Freshly showered and shaved, he gives himself one last head-to-toe in the mirror before slipping outside, locking the door behind him.

Answers, even the prospect of them, are distilled adrenaline, so Jensen spends most of the drive over tapping the steering wheel and laying on the accelerator a little harder than he should. When he turns into the lot, it's already half full. It's also well lit, which is an unexpected bonus, and he picks a pole to park under. As soon as he swings the door open he can hear the driving bass line, the twang of an electric acoustic hot on its tail.

He weathers a wave of unexpected longing, thinking of long summers and longer hours spent caught in the undertow of Steve's guitar with Chris and Jason tussling over who hummed up the better harmony like they were all still twelve and had eaten their way to the bottom of the box of Fruit-Roll-Ups.

It's been too long.

Up close the building looks just as squat and black as it did online Tuesday morning, but the neon's lit bright and beckoning, the thrum of life spilling over and into the street with an irreverence he's missed. Jensen doesn't catch a double-take from the bouncer when he pushes his way through the double doors, just a nod and that careful once over any good security guy would give a potential problem. He's good at looking unassuming when he wants to, so the quick flick is it.

Through a second set of double doors the music hits him hard, digging up through his heels, climbing his spine, the three quarters time well on its way to a full-on mindfuck when anchored by an electric bass with dirty pickups. And maybe it's just the fact that he's finally here, balanced on the cusp of all those answers he's been after, but Jensen thinks he might actually like it.

All the lights save the ones on the band are turned down low, muted with jewel tone gels that trend red and purple. To his right there's a long, well-stocked bar manned by three dudes in various stages of body modification, all of them wearing black T-shirts and giving each other shit above the hum of the amplifiers. There are tables scattered at random intervals, couples too, but most of the action's up front in the open area at the foot of the stage.

Jensen decides to play it safe, get a beer and try to blend before he combs the crowd for a familiar face. Like shooting fish in a barrel, all he has to do is aim true and pull the trigger. He's got all the time in the world for that.

In theory it works. In practice-

In practice the plan falls apart before it's even fully realized. Jensen might even go so far as to say it blows up in his face. Spectacularly.

Not five minutes after he props his elbows up on the bar, Cheyenne sidles in beside him, her face a profile of pink as she leans in to order a round. Jensen bites his lip to keep from saying the first thing that pops into his head. Without solid proof, calling a co-worker a liar and a stalker seems ever so slightly over the top. She chats with the bartender, giggling at some joke Jensen's not privy to, and he can't tell whether she's feigning nonchalance or if she really hasn't noticed him. Could be she's just buying herself time.

Jensen waits.

Drinks in hand, she twists towards him this time, presumably to make her way back to whatever table she's commandeered in a dark corner. He feels her eyes on him, the cursory catalog she does of his features and he's about to call bullshit when she stops two steps away and turns back.

"Jensen?"

His name gets lost in the sharp cadence of the snare, but he can read the shape of it on her lips. Her face is an even easier read, if considerably more confusing - no guilt, no concern, just surprise. Maybe her moral code works differently though and getting caught in a lie doesn't eat at her the way it would him. Doesn't really matter.

"In the flesh," he says and raises his beer to her in mock salute.

"Did Dan invite you?"

"No, I -" Jensen stops short and studies her. Like before, she seems genuine and it confuses things, makes him question his assumptions. "Which Dan?"

"Danny from sound. Danny that is currently kicking the shit out of that bass drum. I told him to at least say something to you about the gig, but he was being weird. The new kids usually are."

Jensen hears most of it, but latches onto the part about Danny being in the band the hardest. That little tidbit of information means the bar's probably crawling with crew and his master plan for narrowing his suspect pool down to one is now little more than a pipe dream.

He has to ask. "So who all showed?"

"Amy, Liz, and Brian from lighting. The whole sound crew minus the big dogs. Nate and Deb from production. Couple of prop monkeys. And Misha."

In retrospect, he shouldn't have expected any less, but it still makes him swallow hard and pick at the label on his bottle knowing Misha's here. Unlike every other dream he's ever had, he can't shake this one. Each time he's seen Misha since it takes him longer than he'd like to set aside the taste of his mouth, the feel of his tongue.

This, apparently, is no exception and he's lingered too long in silence for Cheyenne to ignore it.

"Trouble in paradise?" she asks, smirking like she knows more than she should.

It's too close to a truth he's not ready to recognize and too far from where they actually are for Jensen's comfort.

"Guess that depends on the definition of paradise," he says and takes a slow pull off his beer.

Cheyenne frowns at him, arched brows tugged together in a tight peak and blond streak falling in her eyes. "So, uh. Most of us are over there," she says, chin tipped over her shoulder. "If you want to join us, cool. If not, that's cool too. Haven't seen Misha for half an hour or so, but I think he's still around somewhere."

She's gone before he can say, "Sure" or "Thanks" or ask any one of the new questions swirling in the back of his mind.

Jensen follows her progress across the room, feels the extra eyes on him once she gets there. Doesn't matter how long he's been in the business, he'll never really get used to the weight of people watching when he's not inhabiting someone else's skin. In this case, it's a necessary evil, a means to an end. Two dozen potential suspects whittled down to eight.

It's better than nothing.

The edge of the bar digs into his back, a broad stripe of pressure that keeps him grounded as he pounds the rest of his beer and scans the floor for stragglers. There's a couple hovering near the back of the crowd that he thinks he recognizes, but their heads are tipped together so it's hard to be sure.

No Misha.

If Lady Luck's on his side, Misha's long gone. Lately though, he's been her bitch and fucked six ways from Sunday before he even opens his mouth. As such, Jensen's not the least bit surprised to find Misha on his second sweep. It's expected, like death and taxes and overtime. The where - well, that's something else altogether.

The alcove sits near enough the stage to provide a semi-obstructed view, but then Jensen figures it was never intended for serious aficionados, more like those who came for the atmosphere and music instead of the visuals. High-backed benches done in red velvet line all three walls, the squat table shoved in the center leaving little room for movement beyond what's required for the careful side-step around the edge.

It's not the corner Jensen would have picked, but then Misha routinely does stuff that flies in the face of conventional reality - like suck face with some coffeehouse douchebag turned punkster.

Colloquialism aside, Jensen thinks first impressions stand in this case. The unfortunate facts of the club's architectural details leave nothing to the imagination, six softball sized globes throwing the pair of them into sharp relief. Or sharp as it gets with Misha half-hidden by roving limbs and lips. They're pressed against the wall and each other so tight that Jensen couldn't begin to figure out where one ends and the other begins. It's all a blur of dark denim and black cotton, skin and ink, Misha's fingers twisted into the fabric stretched tight across the guy's shoulders. In and of himself, dude's not unattractive - lanky with broad shoulders and sharply defined features, longish dark hair that's just the right kind of mess that Jensen knows from experience it took half an hour to get right. From what he can tell, the ink is tasteful and custom, and he can see how Misha might be drawn even if he doesn't really want to.

If he was a little drunker or a lot more self-involved, Jensen might be inclined to believe this whole night had been designed to drive him up the fucking wall. Not that he cares. He doesn't. Misha's a grown ass man with no known romantic entanglements and has every right to screw around with whomever he wants.

Still.

Jensen smacks his bottle down a bit too hard and waves at the blond bartender with the snake crawling up the side of his neck.

"Whiskey. Double. Keep it coming."

"Any preference?"

Punk boy slides a hand up Misha's thigh and it takes more effort than it should for Jensen to keep his voice even as he grits out, "Whatever gets me to shitfaced faster."

"Can do," he says, and Jensen turns in time to catch the sly smile twisting the bartender's lips before he moves away.

It hits him wrong, like there's some great truth he keeps missing caught up behind all the weird smiles and knowing looks people have been lobbing his direction all week. The only thing worse than ignorance is getting your ignorance batted around like a chew toy, but he's never worked out how you ask a stranger what the fuck their problem is without actually asking. Jensen watches him stroll the length of the bar and flip a highball glass into hand, admiring the quick flick of wrist that sends the whiskey spilling after, smooth and honey-colored.

The glass sits at his elbow before he can reach to take it.

Disappointment makes Jensen reckless, always has, so he asks, "What's up?" without expecting an answer and turns back to watch the artsy little fuck with the turtle tattoo and skintight T-shirt molest Misha.

The answer he gets in return might actually go down in history as the weirdest ever, not to be disqualified by the fact that it's actually a question too.

"Your ex?"

Jensen coughs around a swallow of whiskey, both grateful for and irritated by the solid thump of the bartender's fist against his back.

"What makes you think that? Uh-"

"Noah."

"Noah. And what makes you think it's any of your business?"

Even the amber swirl and the liquid fire burning down his throat can't distract him completely. Jensen knows he should leave, knows like he knows the world is round and drunk isn't going to make a damn bit of difference. There's nothing keeping him here now that all the clues have been sifted through and cataloged. But he can't quite get past the way they're slotted together, the motion of Misha's jaw as he tongues at punk boy's mouth, the splay of his fingers between hem and waistband.

"Don't shoot the messenger, my man. I've seen pining aplenty. You're straight up panting after him."

"No. No, I'm... a concerned bystander. He's a friend."

"Bystand my ass."

Jensen sighs and tosses back the rest of the whiskey, mutters a "Seriously," he can't even bring himself to believe.

"Shit. So he's not into you?" Noah leans across the bar, forearms slapped flat against the scarred surface. Whiskey appears in Jensen's glass again as if wishing is all it takes.

The shrug comes naturally and before Jensen has a chance to change his mind.

"He blind or just a bastard?"

"Neither. Both. Fuck, I don't know. What do I care? Not like I'm hard up or anything," Jensen says, rolling his shoulders back slow and easy. It's the truth. He could charm his way into the pants of anyone in this bar if he applied himself, Misha included. It's one of the burdens of being so awesome.

Again, it's a plan that works in theory. What it doesn't take into account is the matched pair of elephants parked in the proverbial corner - one named 'You want more' and the other named 'Own it, you know what you want'. They're pachyderms of monstrous proportions, distracting and nerve-wracking and annoying as all fuck, because they won't let him forget or even substitute anymore.

He can sure as shit try though.

Noah settles chin to palm, elbow bent against the bar and Jensen watches him do it out of the corner of his eye.

"What about you," he asks. "Sure you get pretty aplenty in this line of work."

There's something in the way Noah smiles, the self-deprecating huff tacked onto his laugh that's almost but not quite perfect.

"I'm kind of a dick if you hadn't noticed," he says and taps his rings against the bar hard enough that Jensen feels it right between his shoulder-blades. "And I'm also-"

"Gay?" Jensen offers, because that feels like it might be Noah's elephant, if he's reading his signals right. He's not exactly operating on his most tactful cylinders tonight.

"Particular is what I was going to say," Noah answers, his smile drawn tight across his teeth like maybe he's afraid of being judged. "But then, I'm generally not a fan of stating the obvious."

Jensen smiles and tosses back a long swallow of whiskey, draining the glass a second time and savoring the burn, the tingle starting to lodge in his jaw and sing across shoulders. The silence stretches between them, full of unspoken promise and a challenge Jensen's not sure he wants to rise to. Noah fills his glass again without having to be asked, whiskey sloshing up past what any sane bartender would pour as a double.

Jensen could kiss him, might even sack up and do it under different conditions.

Because Noah's totally his type, if he could claim to have a type for dudes. He doesn't, but that's not a detail he's in any hurry to focus on right now considering the nature of his own previously alluded to elephants. No harm in appreciating aesthetics though - compact build, nice lips, slender without being scrawny, singular without being over-the-top weird, graceful in a way that proclaims to anyone with eyes that he knows how to use his body.

Jensen's perceptive enough to recognize it's on offer.

Of course, that's when Misha laughs, head tipped back and sideways, Mr. Rockabilly Coffeehouse whispering something in his ear with his fingers hooked into the collar of Misha's T-shirt. As it just so happens, that's also when Misha sees him, catches him staring for the second time in a week. And Jensen's gotten so settled in his undeniably perverse voyeur routine that he can't look away - doesn't want to because their eyes lock and his stomach sinks right down into his knees.

He's so fucked.

Impossibly and completely fucked.

Noah leans in again, fingers wrapped tight around Jensen's wrist, breath warm and wintermint-scented in his ear. It's enough of a shock to shift his balance and Jensen feels the stool rock off one of its legs then settle back with a solid thump.

"Relax, cowboy," he says when Jensen tries to jerk his arm away. "Two can play."

"If they're playing the same game, sure," Jensen says. "This is not what you think it is. Hell, _I_ don't even know what it is."

Across the room, Misha's on the move, slipping what looks like a business card out of his wallet and scribbling furiously on it with a pen he produced from who-the-fuck knows where. He tucks the card in the punk boy's back pocket and pats his ass to send him on his way. Jensen can't quite parse the meaning of the moment three-quarters of the way to a whiskey drunk, but he thinks he should feel vindicated.

The view makes even less sense after another sinus-clearing gulp from his glass because when he opens his eyes Misha's occupying the stool to his left and Noah's fingers are no longer a firm, warm band of pressure circling his wrist.

"Misha."

"Jensen," Misha answers, and Jensen will never get over how many meanings he can pour into a single word. This time all Jensen can extract with any certainty is the frustration and humor. Whatever.

"Misha, Noah. Noah, Misha."

Jensen takes a long, slow sip of whiskey just to have something to occupy his mouth that doesn't require speech. This far down the neck of a bottle, he's way more likely to incriminate himself than he is anyone else. And it's not as if his input would do anything to disarm the full-on Animal Planet turf war raging silently between them. Neither even has the decency to be subtle and Jensen's not looking to get clubbed over the head and dragged anywhere by his hair. If Misha wasn't a part-time asshole and Noah was actually entitled to the overprotective insanity, Jensen might go so far as to call it sweet. As it stands now, the bullshit posturing's just annoying. Telling either one of them to step the fuck off would only make the situation worse though. That's a lesson Jensen learned a long, long time ago thanks to Welling.

The band wrapped their last encore what feels like an hour ago although the clock above the door seems to think it's only been fifteen minutes. Regardless, they've taken with them his last, best hope for distraction - the club clearing rapidly until all that's left is a handful of crew, the band and the staff. Seems a late start means a short set.

Jensen wants to fill the air with noise to keep his ears from ringing, but instead, he drinks his whiskey and waits.

By the time he reaches the bottom of the glass, they seem to have worked out their differences. Misha, unsurprisingly, emerges victorious if his body language's to be believed - his arm a warm, barely there presence along the edge of the bar and behind Jensen's back, fingers dangling way too close to his side for comfort.

Noah breaks the silence first, eyes narrowed down to slits, tone careful and professional when he asks Misha, "What'll it be?"

"Circumstances appear to dictate that I'm done for the night," Misha says, his tone sharp but smile wide.

Noah slings a towel over his shoulder and rubs his hands together, tops off Jensen's double one last time and says, "Great, I'll just go be elsewhere," then turns to move away.

Jensen blinks after him, the set of his shoulders as he slams together racks of dirty glasses and goes about the business of flushing the trap in the sink. It's not like he had any kind of attachment to Noah, but he can't help wondering what the fuck Misha's smoking to have treated another human being with such carelessness. That's not what he's about. Not usually anyway.

As expected, Misha reels himself back in as soon as Noah's out of earshot - heels hooked on the bottom rung of the stool, fingers laced together and shoved between his knees.

"No need to thank me," he says. "These things I do for the good of mankind."

And that - that is _it_.

"Fuck you, Misha," Jensen hisses under his breath, feels the venom work its way through his system chasing the whiskey, and slams back another swallow.

Misha huffs a laugh and it pisses Jensen off that he can tell the difference, that this flavor of self-deprecation is, like Goldilocks' porridge, just right. "Promises, promises," he says and tips forward on his stool to try to catch Jensen's eye.

Just. No.

Jensen finishes the last of his whiskey and shoves himself away from the bar, the stool, most of all Misha and his smug fucking face. The same face Jensen still seems to want to do things to, things he's not entirely comfortable with. He wobbles for a tenuous handful of seconds before he gets his knees under him and what was a totally workable buzz while he was sitting down turns nasty when he's on his feet. It makes him more determined, not less.

Noah's not ten feet away, bent down behind the bar stocking beer or lemons or whatever the fuck they're low on, his hair a shock of light against the dark woodgrain. A couple carefully measured steps and he's there.

"Hey," Jensen says, slurs, shouts. It sounds deafening in the relative quiet, hollow and off.

"Jensen? You good?" Noah asks. There's real concern in his eyes once Jensen can see them, bring them into a shaky focus, and that's enough to make his mind up.

Takes him two attempts to find a grip with Noah's T-shirt wet, but Jensen gets his hands where he wants them eventually, soft cotton crushed between his fingers and then the unmistakable taste of wintermint on his lips. Noah grabs back and Jensen feels his hands like boat anchors at his shoulder and across the back of his neck. One of them makes a noise, low and urgent, the kind that never really comes up all the way no matter how hard it tries and Jensen takes it as permission to lick into Noah's mouth for more. He wants more, needs it to quiet the ringing in his ears that's gone internal, to shut out the images that flash back unbidden. Misha's lips. Misha's tongue. Misha's hand on him, coaxing him with a sly certainty of purpose.

Fuck.

The " _Jensen_ ," comes from nowhere, but he feels it in his toes, Misha's breath on his neck, Misha's hand on his elbow. He tries to shake free, savoring the slick slide of Noah's lips as he fists his hands tighter, but Misha's like a fucking terrier tugging at him. It's distracting. Jensen breaks away to breathe, far enough but not too far, his nose still nudged up against Noah's cheek and heart racing. Misha's fingers flex harder, digging into muscle and tendon, but Jensen won't look, can't look if he has any hope of pulling this bullshit off.

Can't kid a kidder.

"Problem?" he asks, both surprised and grateful that it sounds about a thousand times more resolved than he actually feels. Jensen looks to Noah, trying to get back that sense of solidity because his head's beginning to swim. But the closeness clues him in to an unfortunate fact he hadn't yet realized - Noah's eyes are blue. The tide of the memory takes him then and he loses focus, Noah blurring down to fuzzy flesh-colored shapes.

"A word?" Misha says, and Jensen can't help himself. He looks. "Outside," Misha continues. "Preferably before I relocate your arm."

Noah sighs against his neck, hands already sliding like he's got some superhuman sense of insight, like he knows Jensen will go before Jensen does. It's a phenomenon that's starting to become a pattern and Jensen wonders if it should worry him.

Right now, he's too drunk to worry about much of anything.

So he says, "Yeah, okay," and tries to smooth flat the wrinkles he's put in the front of Noah's shirt.

When he shuffles away, it's on the tip of his tongue to say that he'll be back but Noah stops him with a beatific smile and a muttered, "No you won't."

Beyond the doors of the club, the night has cooled considerably, the gentle breeze catching in the trees enough to raise gooseflesh across the back of Jensen's neck. It also goes a long way in pulling his head out of the clouds even if it can't completely counteract his short-sighted decision to over-indulge.

The wall beside the entrance is far enough outside for him quite frankly, and Jensen leans against it, the red of the neon overhead turning the black paint a ruddy purple in the dark. At least it isn't spinning.

Misha, it seems, has other ideas about the wheres of outside, because he keeps walking - long, purposeful strides that eat up asphalt and only slow to a stop once he realizes there's no one following. Even with the distance, Jensen hears him curse, the wind taking the word in the opposite direction. He tries to follow it, but can't catch on, doesn't want to move because the black brick at his back is good. So good.

"Jesus, Jensen," Misha says, and Jensen opens his eyes not knowing when they closed, thoughts he should not be entertaining rooting fast in his brain.

Misha's close enough to kiss, not halfway across the parking lot or across the room tongue-fucking some other dude. He's standing a foot away with one hand on Jensen's chest and the other on his wrist, trying to wedge his shoulder under Jensen's arm and steal him away from his friend the wall. The whiskey sloshes in his stomach, a burning swill that makes him pitch forward enough for Misha to wrap an arm around his waist.

Then he's walking, the pavement beneath his feet pounding back up his legs, Misha's hip bumping against his on every other step because Jensen can't seem to find the right rhythm. Misha shifts against him, shrugging closer, holding tighter when he staggers and remembers that there were supposed to be words and that he's pissed.

"Not my keeper," he mumbles.

Misha laughs, shoulders shaking with it until his face softens into one of those unreadable expressions Jensen wants to kill him for making. "If you really want to embarrass yourself by passing out halfway through the blowjob your new friend Noah was going to give you in the back room, you're more than welcome to. Don't ask me to deliver you to him. Even I have limits."

Jensen glances back over his shoulder, the neon's still lit but it shines from what seems miles away. As awesome as a blowjob would be, it's probably not fair to either of them.

Instead he leans on Misha a little harder and says, "Limits? You?"

Part of him wants to throw caution to the wind, pull Misha down with him amongst the dried leaves and broken beer bottles to find out once and for all. It wouldn't take much, one misplaced step or turned ankle to tumble them both. But he can't, or won't. Instinct sends him on to safer trains of thought.

"So apparently I have a stalker," he says, groaning when Misha deposits him against the side of a familiar silver sedan.

"Only the one? How disappointing for you." Misha tugs the door open slowly, one hand pressed against Jensen's chest to keep him upright. It's a small thing, but it makes him hope. And panic.

"Love notes," he blurts out, his hand flying to the front of Misha's shirt before he thinks to pull it back. Misha looks at it, considering, then follows the line of his arm up to meet his eyes. It's strange, and again Jensen wants to do some very ill-advised things that would at least give him an idea whether Misha's interested or not, he's just too chickenshit to pull the trigger. Easier to talk about a whacknut stalker.

"Love notes," Misha repeats, and he looks down like the ground has suddenly become the most fascinating thing on the planet.

"Shaped like birds and turtles and ugly black bugs, but yeah. Love notes. And other stuff. This address for one."

It's a relief to have it out in the open, for someone to know besides Jay and Cheyenne, and he's past caring whether Misha will mock him or not. Mockery's much easier to handle than the powder keg packing down behind his ribs, ready to explode.

His fingers slip free as Misha steps back to give him room. The passenger side door is the one hanging open, so Jensen guesses it's on him to get in. He tangles his arm in the seatbelt on the way, but eventually he manages to sit the fuck down without damaging himself or the car. Misha slams the door after him, and Jensen watches him in the rearview, the hand pushed haphazardly through his hair, the slow saunter around the ass end of the car before he slides into the driver's seat all smiles.

"Shall we?" he says, but doesn't wait for an answer before he coaxes the car to life and shifts her into reverse.

Vancouver whips past the window in a patchwork of shadow and light - neighborhoods sleeping behind closed doors and every so often a cluster littered with bars and clubs, restaurants that accommodate the often alternative lifestyle of her part-time HoNo residents. Jensen uses the silence and inebriation to his advantage, stripping down and sorting through the clues to see if something shakes out in his altered state. Misha's lost to thought anyway, one wrist strung lazily across the steering wheel, the other hand tapping at his lips, his knee, the gearshift like it has to be in motion in order for him to think clearly.

Up ahead the light flips to red and the car slides to a smooth stop.

"If I know you at all, there's a list," Misha says, his hands finally still and wrapped tight at ten and two like he's bracing himself.

"Sure there's a list," Jensen answers, puzzled. "How the hell else would you figure something like this out? It's driving me insane."

"And here I thought we were already there."

The car jolts back into motion as the light turns green and Jensen's stomach flips over then into his throat, whiskey swirling fast and furious and generally making him wish he wasn't alive.

"So?" Misha says, and Jensen feels like he missed something in trying too hard to not puke his guts out all over Misha or his car.

"So what?"

"Regale me with the fruits of your divine deductive labors," Misha says.

Jensen breathes carefully in through his nose and grips the dash as they take the turn into his neighborhood, swallowing hard around the "Eight," he grits out between his teeth.

"I'm sorry?"

"Got it narrowed down to eight," Jensen says.

From here he can see the halo of his porch light shining where he left it on, and he could swear it's the sweetest thing he's ever seen. Except now he has to decide if he's going to man up and ask Misha in or - not.

There's no reason to believe he'll get the answer he's after, no solid signs to indicate that Misha's even interested, much less willing or wanting. _He_ still wants, though. Despite his best efforts and every last shred of common sense he ever possessed, he wants Misha.

Misha.

The burden of asking gets taken off his hands when he nearly sideswipes his face with the driveway on his way out of the car. He doesn't only because Misha's already there, arm looped across his chest and yanking him back.

"I could drop you right now," Misha says. "And still be a better friend than Jack."

Jensen blinks and steadies himself against the car. Perhaps consuming a fifth of whiskey in the space of an hour wasn't the best of ideas. Sometimes he can be a jealous bastard though, and that slim-hipped little pseudo-punk was grating his last nerve.

"That what his name was?" Jensen asks and pushes away from both car and Misha, aiming for the front door. He doesn't trip again, just scuffs the shit out of his boot because the first step seems to have migrated two feet further down the front walkway.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Misha sighs. "Let's get you to bed. If you break your face on my watch, I'll never hear the end of it."

While it's not exactly the most refined of propositions, it gets Misha inside, Misha's hand on his back or his hip whenever his balance fails him. But Jensen's not into games, playing or being played. He doesn't dangle carrots or hint at shit when he really wants something because it's a waste of time. He takes. So he doesn't stop moving once the door slams shut behind them, he lets the momentum carry him down the hall and into his room with Misha trailing after.

The bed bounces when he flops back on it still fully clothed, his stomach roiling at the sudden motion.

"Mission accomplished," he says, lacing his fingers behind his head with a smile, a smile Misha doesn't return.

Instead he says, "Jensen," and paints it up with all those subtle shades of inflection and meaning that neither of them have a reference for, says, "I didn't realize," and kneels to unknot the laces of Jensen's boots.

"What's there to realize? That I'm a sad fuck a little in love with a person I may never know?" Jensen asks. Misha's hands still for a second, but he holds his tongue.

And it's too much to have him so close but not be able to touch, stubble rasping at the knee of his jeans as Misha shifts to work the other set of laces loose. Somewhere in the back of his alcohol addled brain, there's a question he can't get a handle on. It feels important, like maybe he should chase it down, but the thud of his boots against the dresser chases it off.

"S'not even about that anymore, y'know? Solving the puzzle. I care who, but not for the reasons I thought," he says, looking down the line of his body to catch Misha's eye. "I want that. Who doesn't want that?"

Misha only hums, and Jensen realizes he's accidentally wandered into the maudlin portion of the program with Misha still in attendance. It doesn't bode well for him or his rapidly diminishing manhood. Then Misha's fingers - his long, clever fingers - are fumbling at Jensen's belt buckle, slipping leather through metal and Jensen's asking himself entirely different questions. Ones that make his face flush hot and his own fingers twitch with want, like whether Misha's hair is as soft as it looks and what kind of noises he makes when he's as straight-up fucking needy as Jensen is right now. Both questions he can't answer until he asks the first.

His body makes the decision for him when Misha unfastens the fly of his pants and hooks his thumbs under to ease them down. Misha doesn't ask if it's okay or if he should or can. He just smacks Jensen's hip and Jensen lifts up to let him do it.

It's so simple.

Jensen catches Misha's wrist at his ankle, feels the tendons twist against his palm as Misha works denim down over his foot. He whispers, "Stay," and Misha pretends he doesn't hear, rocks back on his heels to stand instead and tosses Jensen's pants alongside his boots.

Light from the hall lands on Misha's face, a soft gold glow that strikes in complete contrast to the studied stillness of Misha's features, too blank to be honest.

"Turn over," Misha says quietly and Jensen narrows his eyes.

"Or what?"

Misha doesn't answer, and in a flash he's gone, reduced to nothing more than a series of loud disembodied footsteps in the hallway and a muttered, "Fucking stubborn dickface," that makes Jensen smile wider.

He does as he's told, not because Misha asked, but because he's not stupid and has taken care of enough drunken idiots in his time to know that you can actually drown in your own vomit if you try hard enough. There was one night he'd almost had to sit on Kane to keep him from rolling over. Kane's not here right now though, thank all that is holy.

Misha is.

Jensen tries to focus on his movements, shutting his eyes tight to listen - the refrigerator opening and closing, plastic rattling in the master bath, water running. At some point, he must doze off, because Misha's voice in his ear brings him back around.

The "Hey," is just as soft as the earlier command and Jensen forgets himself, thinking, maybe even hoping he's back in that dream with Misha and his creepy smile, back where Misha wants him. So he reaches out to tangle his fingers in Misha's shirt, to pull him closer and kiss him quiet even though he's not actually saying anything. This Misha tastes like Red Hots from what Jensen can tell. Not that he's getting much of a sample yet because this Misha is also slow to respond, tentative instead of consuming and Jensen has to wonder what the fuck is wrong with his subconscious that it would feed him such a lameass dream.

When he tries to get a hand around the back of Misha's neck to pull him deeper, he finally gets it. His elbow catches against the bottle of water on the nightstand, tipping it over onto the Aleve beside it, sending them both tumbling into the trashcan below. The same trashcan that the real Misha has thoughtfully emptied of both garbage and bag to make the cleanup easier in case an unfortunate stomach evacuation is, in fact, imminent.

Fuck.

"Misha?"

Jensen feels the press of a cool washcloth against the back of his neck, Misha's breath warm against his cheek before he answers.

"Go to sleep, Jen," he says, and the last thing Jensen hears before he passes out is the solid click of the front door latching.


	6. Chapter 6

Morning should be outlawed. No, scratch that, Jensen thinks, morning should never have been allowed to exist in the first place. The tiny dwarves mining precious gems inside his skull agree. Or, they would if they were real. He's sure of it.

Eventually, Jensen wakes himself up enough to work his head around the fact that there are no tiny dwarves and the ringing of their tiny hammers against tiny rocks is actually the constant, endless beeping of the alarm he set on his phone last night before he got drunk and decided to grow a cat on his tongue and shove a spike through his lower back.

In a perfect world, when Jensen opens his eyes Vancouver will have graced him with one of her perpetually soggy, overcast days.

No such luck.

Jensen fumbles blindly at the nightstand, squinting against the light. There's a bunch of other shit that's not supposed to be there, but no phone and only one other place it could be.

Naturally, his pants are in a heap across the room, the corner of his phone peeking out of the front pocket. Considering the state of things, they might as well be in fucking Zimbabwe, but that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme. If he wants to silence the tiny dwarves, he'll have to get up.

His head protests that idea violently, a stabbing pain shooting between his temples when he swings his legs over the edge of the bed to try vertical on for size again. After carefully weighing the pros and cons of further motion, stopping the shrill series of beeps takes precedence and he's finally on his feet, phone in hand, tapping it into silence.

Target neutralized, he falls back into bed, instantly regretting the short-sighted decision to choose speed over finesse.

For a long stretch of seconds, Jensen can't figure out why the he set the damn thing in the first place. It's Sunday for fuck's sake - the day of sleep and script review and sleep. The events of last night bleed back in slowly, shapes turned abstract by the liberal application of liquor and colors bled together by the same. He looks at the bottles on the nightstand, both water and pain reliever, and remembers.

Misha was here.

Misha was here but isn't now.

Jensen doesn't know how to feel about that, or if he should _feel_ anything. There's no time to decide one way or the other anyway, because as he claws his way back through yesterday, Jensen remembers something else. He has exactly an hour to pick Ick up from Selena's and get to Buntzen if he has any hope of beating the stalker at his or her own game. The beetle requested his presence at 9. As long as he gets there by 8:30, he should be able to get the jump on whoever's responsible for the origami.

Misha can wait.

By the time he swings his truck into the lot that butts up against the trailhead, Jensen feels like twice-baked ass. Icarus, of course, seems to neither notice or care, too excited by the smells and sounds wafting in through the passenger-side window to pay much attention.

Twice, Jensen asks himself what the fuck he's doing here.

Each time the answer is the same. He has to know. Even if all he gets out of the deal is a chance to confront the person responsible and flesh out the parts of the story he doesn't have a handle on, it's reason enough. Truth be told, he doesn't have a handle on much of anything. His brain has been working at cross purposes and he realizes that of the eight likely cast and crewmembers in attendance last night, he hasn't even begun to work through them for motive.

To be fair, both to himself and his mediocre reasoning skills, trying to work anything through last night would have been asking for a disaster.

Icarus yips, high and happy, his tail a blur of white behind him, and while the sound makes Jensen's head pound all the more fiercely, he can't begrudge the pup his playtime. Buntzen's dog beach is possibly his favorite places on the planet and Jensen needs a bird's eye view anyway.

"Okay, dude. I get it," he says, clicking the lead in place. "I'm a very bad daddy."

Jensen checks to make sure his sunglasses are fully seated and shoves the bill of his hat down to his eyebrows. Sun. Sun should also not be allowed to exist.

Icarus bounds down before he gets the door open all the way, leaving him to wrangle the windows, his phone and keys with a very determined twelve pound cotton ball intent on dragging him the entire length of the parking lot. If he was in a less shitty mood, Jensen might even admire the little guy for having goals. But he is in a shitty mood and this is the last place he wants to be - loud and bright and crowded.

Hangovers are not a spectator sport.

And yet, here he is voluntarily putting himself in the general vicinity of other people at 8:30 the Sunday morning after going on a pretty spectacular bender.

Hopefully, they'll all make it home unscathed. Hopefully, he will.

Considering the time and day, traffic's actually light - a young couple on the other side of the lot with two toddlers strapped to their backs, a pack of fresh-faced teenagers huddled around a rust-riddled van with the back doors propped open. There are others, but not a lot of them and everyone seems happy to respect the hush that the trees soaring overhead inspire.

Jensen finds an isolated corner of the beach to commandeer, one with plenty of shade and cover where he can watch people come and go without worrying about being seen. It's as perfect as it gets for a stakeout. Not that he'd say no to a greasy stack of home fries and a couple eggs over easy if this particular stakeout came with them, but you work with what you got. He's certain as he can be that this time he's finally beaten the odds and swung the game in his favor. That'll have to be enough.

Once unleashed, Icarus splashes out into the water to pursue his lifelong pipe dream of bringing down a long-tailed drake. Jensen's never had the heart to keep him from it or explain to him that some of the bigger ones might actually outweigh him. It keeps him busy and happy, and gives Jensen a chance to scan for familiar faces.

Logic tells him that whoever it is will probably come and go just before nine. Hell, maybe they get off on watching. Maybe, they'll stick around until he takes the bait.

Doesn't matter this time. Doesn't matter whether the words belong to them or not or whether it's a fucking penguin or a llama or a cat they're folded into. He's done chasing a ghost.

Forty minutes later he's got a crick in his neck, a cramp in his ass, and his head's a throbbing mess of Jello. Sunglasses are no match for the aftermath of a whiskey drunk, not even close, but his momma also always said he's as stubborn as a mule. She would know. Icarus gave up on the ducks a while ago and found a spot of sun at his feet to curl up in, an algae-covered stick to gnaw on.

Problem is, it's long past time for someone to have shown if they're going to, and he's five minutes from packing it in when Icarus' ears twitch forward, his tail wagging slow and cautious as he sniffs the air. Jensen follows his line of sight carefully, not that he has to.

Jared's not what you'd call easy to miss.

It's exactly the kind of mindfuck he can't handle right now - Harley and Sadie tearing down the shoreline, Icarus scurrying out to meet them in a slobbering pile of paws and tails, Genevieve hanging tight to Jared's hand and beaming up at him like he hung the moon.

"Hey asshole," Jared says, nudging at Jensen's calf with the toe of his sneaker.

"I'm the asshole?" Jensen asks, and he's trying to be pissed, but he's fresh out of fuel for that particular fire. "You're the one running interference for the mental case folding me love poems."

There's no doubt in Jensen's mind that Jay's involved, not anymore. Regardless of whatever line of bullshit Jared feeds him now, he knows. The appearance of the Padalecki clan is too perfect to be coincidental.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," is all he says in his own defense and Gen rolls her eyes at him.

Jensen sighs. "Sure you don't," he says and digs his heels into the sand to push himself up.

"Would I do that to you?"

"Yes," Jensen answers, brushing the damp leaves off his ass. "And then some. Now get the hell out of my way. If you're here that means they are."

Jensen moves to push his way past, lake water lapping at the soles of his shoes and Icarus pawing at his legs. Jared, of course, tosses a quick glance over his shoulder and sidesteps with him, effectively pinning him in between lake and a wall of muscle. It's the last fucking straw.

The, "Move," that comes out of his mouth is only marginally human, and in an uncharacteristic moment of wisdom, Jared does.

But it's too late.

Forty yards out, on a picnic table set into the curve of the trail, sits a red paper dragon.

 

For once he doesn't stop to think, doesn't try to reason out the why, he just runs. Gravel crunches under his feet as he flies down the trail toward the parking lot, twigs snapping against his face as branches bow at his passing. Twice he almost flattens someone. Twice he dodges at the last minute, scraping an elbow against tree bark and nearly turning an ankle on a mossy rock. The pounding of his heart catches up with the pounding in his head and by the time he hits asphalt again, he's panting and nauseous.

Jensen scans every face, every car moving through the lot, and not a one of them strikes a spark of recognition. In the end, all he has to show for the effort is a weirded out pack of strangers and the beginnings of a fierce migraine.

Jared will die bloody. Soon.

He takes his time on the way back to the beach, lost in thought and trying to figure out how things came to this, why he cares so much, and why the hell Jared would willingly, gleefully participate in this madness.

Clearly, the world hates him.

This in and of itself is bad enough, but when coupled with the Misha situation it turns into some shitty romantic comedy that's heavy on comedy and light on romance. Especially since all signs point to him ending up with his right hand for company instead of the girl - or boy.

"Jensen?" Gen's voice shakes him from his stupor. He can hear her but can't lay eyes on her yet.

"Here," he says, automatically adjusting his path toward the sound. It's embarrassing to tear off into the woods like a madman after a person that may or may not exist, that may just be Jared on a power trip. But he's going to have to face ridicule for his insanity sooner or later and at least Gen will ease him in.

When she rounds the bend, she's got both Icarus and the dragon in tow.

"Thought you might want these," she says, slipping the loop of the leash from her wrist and handing it over. The dragon she holds out like a peace offering, probably on behalf of her much less intelligent husband. "There was a note underneath it. I didn't open it."

"Thanks, Gen," he says. "Really."

"Don't mention it."

Jensen tucks the scrap of paper in his pocket for later, turning his attention to the dragon instead. It's a mess - a crumpled, misshapen mess of folds that only resembles an actual dragon thanks to the tail and wings. The fold pattern is also more complex and the paper way more stiff, like whoever made it meant it to keep. He doesn't know how long he looks, but they spend enough time mired in silence that Genevieve starts to turn back down the trail.

"So, do you know?" he asks, and she stops.

"Even if I did, I couldn't tell you," she says, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. "But no, I have no idea who it is."

Jensen sighs then nods. He'd expect nothing less. "Is it for real? Or is Jay just fucking with me?"

Genevieve smiles at the ground, toes at a stray cigarette butt caught between the leaves and says, "Little of both, if I had to guess. Love's weird that way. It just sort of happens."

"Who said anything about love?"

Predictably, she doesn't answer. Instead, she finally makes that turn to head back down to the beach and tosses over her shoulder, "Take care, Jensen. Be careful."

> In every ending there is opportunity. 

On Monday morning, Jensen slips the curling scrap of paper in his front pocket. There's nothing damning about the shape of it, so it's less conspicuous to carry around than a mangled paper dragon.

He still can't put a finger on why he feels the need to carry it with him. But when Misha slides into his personal space to give him shit about still being hungover, when he can feel the warm imprint of hands on his face, thumbs on his eyebrows even after Misha walks away, that scrap is what stands between him and some pretty embarrassing cowering in his trailer.

> In every ending there is opportunity. 

While the magic scrap hasn't been rendered completely useless by Tuesday afternoon, its efficacy appears to be waning. Jensen spends as much time as he can stretched out on the couch in his trailer, and it's not that he's hiding from anyone. He's just ridiculously tired for some reason and wants a little bit of elbow room.

Jay comes and goes as he pleases like he always has and Jensen doesn't mind the bright, spastic, hand-waving visits because they keep him from thinking about the paper in his pocket. And other things. Trailer walls being what they are, he overhears snatches of a conversation but only enough to tell that Jared's amused and Misha's perplexed before Misha himself appears in the doorway under the pretense of running lines.

Misha manhandles him so he has someplace to sit and Jensen lets it happen, the curve of Misha's thigh fitted to the bend of his knees and Misha's forearm draped across his shins once his heels hit upholstery again. Jensen's not sure when Misha decided it was okay to take such liberties, but then he's not sure when he did either.

He traces every letter of the sentence scrawled on the paper four times after Misha leaves.

> In every ending there is opportunity. 

Thursday comes close to driving him around the bend for good. Six hours spent kicking the shit out of yourself against a chain link fence could probably do that to anyone, but that's not what gets the job done. Jensen's plans are to never again think about what it is that does.

When the director calls the scene for what feels like the hundredth time, Jensen starts across the lot to his trailer. He just needs five minutes to unwind. Five minutes to clear his head and shake loose the shit that's lodged there.

He's never hated the sound of his name quite so much as when Jack barks it.

"Jensen, hang loose," he says. "We want to put another angle on it, but there's a lighting reset. Shouldn't take more than ten."

Jensen sinks obediently into the chair with his name on it and pulls out his phone. He's well aware how easily ten stretches to twenty or thirty when it comes to lighting, especially in darker episodes where the frame is more about what you can't see than what you can. This would be one of those.

If karma has any sort of say in things, maybe everyone will just leave him -

"Hey handsome," Misha says, folding himself into the next chair over, Jared's chair by rights but Jay's on the other side of the street, tossing a mangled yellow Frisbee at Harley.

Jensen drums up a tight smile, but doesn't look over. Anything more would risk the integrity of certain measures he's put in place to deal with this - thing. He answers with Misha's name only because he still has manners.

"They don't go away as quickly as they used to," Misha says and Jensen realizes that trying to make his phone fascinating is an exercise in futility. He focuses on the scrap of paper in his pocket instead to keep from thinking about the pressure of Misha's hands on him when Castiel hauls Dean clear of the creatures at the end of the scene. Or the way Misha lingers after they break apart, brushing grit off the back of Dean's jacket.

He loses the thread of the conversation in the violent absence of thought. Not that he had a hold on it to begin with.

Jensen sighs. "I'm sorry?" he says, glances over at Misha, definitely Misha lounging inside Castiel's costume, and feels something slip inside him.

"Sour mash. Giggle juice. Shine. The thousand euphemisms they have for alcohol to make it sound like a good time."

"Oh, that. I'm not still hungover from Saturday if that's what you're not quite asking." Jensen swallows a hefty dose of pride before continuing. "Thanks, by the way, for y'know, stuff. It was above and beyond the call of duty."

"In my experience the call of duty does not include appreciation by way of tongue, so above and beyond it is," Misha says.

It strikes a chord of hazy recognition, a tug in the back of his mind that tries to make him sit up and take notice, but Jensen ignores it. He's already tried to remember what fits in the holes whiskey left in his Saturday night, but every time he comes up empty. There's Noah's tongue and then the tiny dwarves and never the twain. Besides, they're just talking and Misha frequently says shit to try to get a rise. It's in his nature.

"Um, yeah. Anyway. I'm in one piece is what matters."

"And yet you're not your normal happy-go-lucky, deliciously sarcastic self."

"Got things on my mind," Jensen says, because it's true but not too true.

"Like fetching blonde bartenders?"

The subject strikes close to home, sure, but Misha's aim misses wide. He hasn't thought about Noah again until just now. Other things have been percolating unacknowledged since then, things underlined by the way Genevieve watches Jared when he's not looking. The way she moves through his life tying up loose ends before Jared knows anything needs to be knotted.

Synergy so ingrained and effortless, Jensen wonders how one ever managed without the other.

And he wants that. Someone who knows how he takes his coffee, that he likes his eggs over-easy instead of scrambled and that toast should damn well be buttered on both sides. Someone who respects his quirks, maybe even enjoys them even if they don't make sense.

Someone.

"Not exactly," he says. "What about you? Molested anything tall, dark, and artsy lately?"

It's the only defense he can devise spur of the moment. One that deflects attention back on Misha and away from his own wants. His own needs. Jensen expects a response honed sharp by Misha's wit - something about free love and taking what's offered or some reference to self-love of the masturbatory kind.

No matter how it shakes out, he's pretty sure he doesn't actually want to know.

What he gets instead is, "In the last couple of days? No. Pretty but forgettable doesn't interest me long term."

"Was he?"

"He who?"

Jensen attempts nonchalant, tries to strike that perfect balance between actual interest and polite detachment. That he actually cares makes the charade more difficult to pass off. "The coffeehouse punk the other night. Was he forgettable?"

"You notice, of course, that I had to ask who you were talking about."

Jensen noticed. Even if he doesn't particularly want to admit to it, he noticed.

"Mind if I ask why?"

Misha shrugs and folds his hands into his lap, watches his fingers thread together. Jensen's too busy cataloging the way Misha's eyelashes settle against his cheeks to pay attention to his hands.

"Lack of substance, I guess," Misha says. "He was exactly what you'd expect him to be, right down to the line of overly self-conscious pretentious bullshit. Good for a fuck, but beyond that I'd have probably chewed my own legs off to get away. Candy-coated and kinky doesn't do it for me the way it used to."

"Seem to remember him fairly well for someone so forgettable."

"Well, I tend to at least have a conversation with someone before I shove my tongue down their throat," Misha says, trying and failing to stifle a laugh. "Unlike some people."

Noah again. Apparently his drunken misdeeds are going to chase him until the end of time.

"There was conversation," Jensen says. He'd really rather not elaborate unless he has to, because in this instance the only elaboration he has to offer are lies. He's sure as hell not going to tell Misha all he and Noah talked about was him.

"About?"

"Stuff."

"And?"

"Things."

"Titillating."

"Not really."

"Forgettable?"

"Pretty much," Jensen says and sighs, feeling like a jackass for having used someone so readily and admitted to it. "He was in the right place at the right time."

Misha smiles an unreadable smile, brow quirked and teeth showing, says, "Lucky boy," like he might mean it.

"Yeah, lucky."

"So what about the great and mysterious Jensen Ackles?" Misha asks. "If not Noah, then what do you want?"

Jensen scrubs a hand across his face to buy himself some time. Not time to answer, because there's no way he's sharing his stupid dreams of synergistic living with anyone, let alone Misha, but time to come up with something that at least sounds logical.

Jack saves him the trouble, and Jensen has never, ever loved the sound of his name more than when Jack barks it a second time and waves them over.

> In every ending there is opportunity. 

Jensen reads the words for what feels like the hundredth time, smeared by sweat and smudged with dirt, paper dyed pink in streaks with fake blood thanks to an overzealous effects supervisor. Of the thousand and one things that spun through his mind on the drive home from the lake, he'd never expected this.

No end game, no grand prize, and certainly no fucking answers.

The bitch of it is that four full days later, he still can't figure out why.

If it had been just an elaborate prank facilitated by Jared and he'd known the brush-off was coming, there'd have been no reason to protect his accomplice. The only thing funnier than watching Jensen twist in the wind would've been watching both of them noosed and dangling. Jared takes credit for his pranks for that very reason.

Had they been truly heartfelt, he can't think of a single strategic reason to break off pursuit now. Unless of course he got too close and they weren't interested in getting caught. If that were true, what was the point of all this?

There's a shoebox on the top shelf of his bookcase now and as much as Jensen likes to pretend he doesn't know where it came from, he does. If he's feeling particularly self-delusional, he can also pretend the contents are nothing more than evidence, pieces of a puzzle he'll never get to solve.

Which is bullshit.

Like it or not, he's invested, has been invested for awhile now. The why is less elusive, but no less pathetic because of it.

Jensen spills the contents of the box across the coffee table and takes a deep breath. Somewhere in the scatter of brightly colored paper and messy handwriting, he'll find his answer, he's sure of it. He sorts them, one from the other, divvying them out first by shape then by content, but the pattern refuses to emerge.

The dragon sits at the edge of the table, neck mangled and tail bent, mocking his efforts. The one creature he can clearly set apart from the others and it's a dead end. Part of him, albeit a small one, wants nothing more than to scoop everything into the stupid box and introduce every last scrap to his Smokey Joe out on the back deck.

Other parts have very different things to say.

It's fucking frustrating, because he shouldn't care. All he _should_ be feeling right now is relief.

Instead, he gets hunger and frustration with a side-dish of disappointment, and there's no way he can chalk all that up to some unsolved mystery. There's more to it.

But there shouldn't be.

The animals go back in the box along with the note. He slides the lid on, smoothing the top shut with his palm before he returns it to its rightful place. The dragon keeps its perch.

An hour from now, he'll be riding shotgun and on his way back to set for yet another adventure in the world of weird. The last couple of days Jared's made himself so scarce that the only time Jensen sees him is on camera. And Misha. Despite his best efforts Misha's always right _there_ , doing and saying shit he's not supposed to, being earnest and conscientious, his tongue dulled down to a softer edge that only makes all this worse.

He needs to talk to someone, anyone he trusts to give him a straight answer. Because whatever this is, this tightrope he's walking started to fray the second Misha touched him Monday morning and hasn't stopped unwinding since.

The thought hasn't fully formed yet but he's dialing his parents' number, the smooth trill of the phone ringing working it's ineffable magic, like SoCo and coke and having his fishing pole dangled out over a glassy lake.

His mother sounds tired when she answers, her "Hello," stretched a little too long.

"Hey, Momma," he says and shuts his eyes to try to visualize. Maybe she's out on the back porch with a lemonade, or curled up at the desk in the basement with her genealogy files, there's no way of knowing.

Doesn't really matter anyway, because when she says, "Jensen," he can hear her smile. "Been awhile," she continues. "I hope you're not avoiding me."

"I was raised better than that."

The sound of rustling papers drifts down the line, and Jensen smiles. Genealogy it is. Already he feels more centered.

"I know you were, hon," she says and the warmth in her voice very nearly breaks his heart. "Now, were you planning on telling me what's wrong or would you rather talk about the weather?"

Jensen leans back against the arm of the couch, propping his feet on the opposite arm as if posturing will make the lie sound more authentic. Sense memory betrays him and he remembers Tuesday, the way Misha shoved his feet aside, arranged himself carefully in the space, then hauled Jensen's legs back up into his lap like he did it all the time.

These days, his signals are the kind of crossed that doesn't work itself out.

"I can't just call?" he asks, and the shallow, sarcastic little laugh he gets in response clears up once and for all where that gene came from.

"Of course you can. You do. But you're not just calling today, are you?"

"I could-"

"But you're not."

Jensen scrubs a hand across his face with a sigh. "No," he says. "No, I'm not."

"And?"

"There's this -" Guy. Stalker. Poet. "person."

"Does this person have a name? In my experience, people do," she says, and Jensen hears the clink of ice against glass, the click of plastic frames against hardwood where she's set her eyeglasses aside.

The only reason he even notices is because the question catches him off-guard, the intervening silence heavy with expectation. He doesn't have any answers to offer though because he's not actually sure who he's talking about anymore - Misha or the stalker. More than anything, Jensen's sick and fucking tired of not having the answers.

"I'm sure they do," he says quietly. "But that's part of the problem."

"Tell me about the problem, then. We'll get you dug out."

The story's there, right on the tip of his tongue and down to the very last detail, from the first crane to the last cryptic line of text. And while he realizes there's nothing his mom can do to knock the knots loose, talking about it is probably the best he's going to get. When he opens his mouth to tell the tale, something else spills out instead.

"I wish I could let it go."

Not the mystery. Not the faceless, nameless entity still more or less hiding behind Jared. But the dream, his dream, and his desire. The sinking feeling in his gut has a name, just not one he's willing to share.

"Is it something you really want to let go?"

Jensen swallows hard around the lump in this throat and thinks, really thinks for the first time, about everything. The fact that he and Jared really aren't any different than they used to be. That he's probably just jealous and lonely, longing for what Jared has. That he can't remember the last time he willingly invited someone into his life. That he wants to be wanted for more than what he can do. That in spite of the countless selections of poetry, the time and effort and care the stalker had put into selecting passages and keeping the secret, it's Misha he wants, not a pile of paper that's brought nothing but frustration.

When he says, "No," it rings true. "Feeling's not exactly mutual though, and it ain't just up to me."

"Well, no. It isn't. But Jensen, you have a tendency to assume," she says. "Have you asked?"

Jensen lets that scenario play out in his head, flipping quickly through the different ways it might go. In all of them, Misha looks equal parts edible and confused. Sometimes, he's doubled over and laughing.

"Since when do I do things that make sense? Besides, it's complicated."

"I see," she says, humming softly into the receiver. "We didn't raise you scared either. If you never know for sure it'll eat at you, we both know that much. Quit counting chickens and focus on the egg for awhile."

"It's not-"

"That easy? No baby, putting your faith in another person never is. That doesn't mean it's not worth it."

Jensen laughs and props the phone between shoulder and ear to reach for the dragon. It's easier to talk about this shit if he's got something in his hands. The paper's stiff and slightly slick and Jensen tries to hate the person who folded it for stirring all this shit up, but he can't.

"You might reconsider if you knew who it was."

A sigh drifts down the line, and Jensen knows he's being purposefully contrary and painfully obtuse, but he just can't seem to say it aloud. Hell, he's only just begun to get comfortable with thinking it, feeling it.

"Honey, your decisions are yours. There's nothing I would do, nothing Daddy would do to keep you from being happy. I hope you know that."

"Yeah, I know, but-"

"Whatever you decide, I love you," she says."But for your own sake make up your mind."

She's right. She almost always is. Jensen concluded long ago that knowing just what to say is a mother thing because it's easier to think that than that he'd been raised by some nutjob with a sixth sense. What she fails to recognize in this particular situation is the ripple effect such a choice would have in his life. Still, sticking to his assumptions are the coward's way out and it's not like he'll play fast and loose even if he does go for it. He can be patient. Patience is actually kind of a specialty.

"I will," he says and means it. "Thanks." Icarus whimpers from the kitchen and when Jensen glances at the clock, the time takes him by surprise. "Hey, I gotta go let Ick out before Clif shows. Call you later?"

"You better."

"Yeah, yeah. Say hey to Dad for me."

"Take care, sweetheart."

"Bye Momma."

As he swipes his thumb across the screen to end the call it occurs to him that he might be reading Misha wrong. Even if he's not, he's still him, still Jensen, still awesome.

Misha could only hope to be so lucky.

By the time Friday morning rolls around, the shine has worn off his impending leap of faith.

Misha's been more Misha than ever, like his weirdness and brutal honesty got together and had really rude babies overnight. As a result, their scenes together quickly escalate into a battle of wills, Misha wearing Castiel more fiercely than ever, the tension thick on the back of Jensen's tongue. Even between takes, he can't catch a break because Misha's always there, working his way slowly under Jensen's skin.

Not for the first time since he made his decision, Jensen wonders if it was the right one.

But then the director calls the scene and Misha beams at him, all teeth and smile lines, squeezing his shoulder through three layers of wardrobe and Jensen feels it in his toes. Definitely the right decision.

"If at any time my services are required, please don't hesitate to call," Misha says. "Wouldn't want to be the one tasked with picking splinters out of that pretty face."

Jensen blinks because it's all he _can_ do. Misha's officially stretched the bounds of logical conversation beyond the tipping point.

Misha slips his phone in the pocket of Castiel's trench coat, his hands following after. "Not that you spend every weekend knee deep in Jack."

"Oh. Yeah, no. Not doing that again anytime soon. But thanks again." he says. And yeah, for some reason he feels like he's back in high school, leaning against the locker of some chick he likes. It's awkward, they're awkward and have been all week. "I can't remember half the shit that happened that night, but I think I was kind of a ass."

Noah he remembers. Misha getting a thorough tongue-fucking from some lanky pseudo-punk, he remembers. Getting cock-blocked and then hauled off by Misha, he vaguely remembers. After that there's nothing but light and sound and the queasy feeling in his stomach until he'd woken up Sunday morning to painkillers and a bottle of water because Misha happens to also be awesome.

Of course he is.

But then Misha squints at him like he's decided something profound and turns to leave without so much as acknowledging Jensen's gratitude. Dick.

"See you Monday, Jen," he says, and before Jensen can stop him to carpe this diem, he's out of earshot, the door to wardrobe swinging shut on the tail of Castiel's trench coat.

With Misha already done and gone, the rest of the day passes in a mostly productive blur. He and Jay made their peace silently Monday morning with a coffee cup and shrug exchanged, so their work together isn't suffering at the hands of Jensen's stupidity. Jared's still Jared though, so he gets smoked out of the Impala no less than three times during the series of pick-ups they're doing for two episodes ago. While the work's not physical, it's still a grueling schedule and the only time he gets back to his trailer is to pick up his backpack before he heads home for the night.

It's not until his boots hit the bottom step that he notices the screen door standing ajar.

Considering the fact that he's spent most of the last three weeks trying to track down a stalker, Jensen decides that in this case, caution is definitely the better part of valor. The door creaks as he nudges it open with a toe, the light switch slipping between his fingers when he flips it up. At first glance, nothing looks out of place - curtains, couch, doors, television, bag.

Everything is exactly as it should be.

Jensen winds his way to the rear of the trailer, checks the bathroom, and eases into the tiny bedroom space just to be sure.

That's when he finds it.

There, stuck between the pillows at the head of the bed, is a crane. Not just any crane, but one painstakingly crafted of pristine white paper with a message inscribed on its wing.

> Sorry - M

Jensen yanks the script out of his back pocket and flips unerringly to page thirty, paper curling around his fingers as he smoothes it down. Lost amongst the vaguely obscene doodles left in the margins by someone else's hand, there's enough text to satisfy him, to confirm his suspicions and the identity of the folder. The last piece finally slots into place and the stalker, the familiar handwriting, Jared's willing participation all makes perfect sense.

Unfortunately for him, having the one answer only raises a battery of new and even more confusing questions. Because of the eight names left on his list after Danny's gig Saturday night, only one of them begins with an 'M'.

Misha.


	7. Chapter 7

The crane comes home with him, of course it does.

Jared, on the other hand, does not. And if anything is a testament to how distracted he's been, it's that Jensen can't place why until Clif reminds him Jay and Gen are headed to Idaho for the weekend. Never mind the fact that Jared's been talking about the trip for a month.

Without Jared to interrogate, Jensen's plan for the night gets a lot less complicated. Solitude, blessing and curse though it may be, gives him time to think, put his thoughts in some semblance of order before he does what he's known he was going to do ever since he plucked the paper bird from between the pillows and shoved it in his pocket.

He texts Misha.

 _Busy?_

There's still no way of knowing for sure whether or not the animals are genuine, but he's willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

For now.

Doesn't change the fact he wants to look Misha in the eye when he asks.

Thirty seconds later, a bubble appears with Misha's response.

 _Anyone ever tell you that you might be an alcoholic?_

Something stirs in the back of Jensen's brain like a half-remembered dream, the taste of whiskey in his mouth. He sorts through the days since Misha ferried him home with a new set of eyes and realizes, albeit belatedly, that he missed something important in his drunken stupor. Ever since then, Misha's been - different. More open, more honest. As much as it pains him to even think it, he's also been more physically affectionate. Not that anyone will ever rise to Jared's singular level of insanity, but since that night it's been like someone turned Misha out of his restraints. Even when doing his damndest to drive Jensen insane, Misha has been damn near inescapable.

After everything, he's still not playing with a full deck and it pisses him off that he's the one that handicapped himself. It's not the first time.

He focuses on the gentle vibrations of the phone in his hand, the smooth metal against his palm as he taps out his answer.

 _My place. Half an hour._

Misha's, _My what a commanding tone you have_ , pops up almost immediately, but Jensen leaves it unanswered. Either Misha will show or he won't, and Jensen's enough of a gambler to let his money ride.

Fucking Misha.

Ten minutes later, the SUV idles down at the end of his driveway. Twelve minutes later, Jensen slams the door shut behind him and wastes another ten seconds watching the wink of taillights disappear over the crest of a hill.

There's nothing he can do to prepare for this, no easy way out. He's not stupid enough to think there is. All he can do is be honest and hope Misha doesn't spend an hour spinning bullshit before he comes clean. It's only logical, rational. But logic doesn't keep his blood from pumping faster, roaring through his ears like some tiny steam engine. And no amount of rationalization is going to put his mind at ease if it turns out he's the butt of some intricately staged practical joke.

You can't reason with your heart no matter how hard you try.

Icarus greets him at the front door, pawing up his legs after the scratches owed him. Jensen's happy to provide, the countdown in his head tick-ticking faster in the few minutes he spends giving Ick a rubdown. The conversation he's about to have is not the kind that suffers interruption lightly though, so he takes the time now to make sure food and water bowls are filled and that Icarus has marked his fair share of territory in the backyard.

Motion keeps him from over-analyzing, so even after Ick scurries back inside, Jensen busies himself with whatever his hands find - jacket hung in the closet, keys and phone dropped on the table in the entryway, backpack relocated to the bedroom along with his shoes and socks. He's blissfully barefoot and halfway out the door with a bag of trash when he realizes he left the last crane in his pocket, so he pulls the box down on the way and lobs it at the coffee table.

Jensen's carefully orchestrated detachment falters at the curb, the walls of his carefully manufactured box bending when Misha's headlights sweep across the lawn ten minutes too early. He takes his time securing the lid of the garbage can, breathing in the cool night air and doing his best to exhale his expectations.

It works to a certain extent, but he can't remember the last time he wanted something as much as he wants this, needs this to be real and right. The apology fosters doubt, winds up his insides because he has no fucking clue what Misha's sorry for. And despite feigning innocence earlier, when Misha levers himself out of that sleek silver sedan of his, he doesn't look at all surprised to be standing in Jensen's driveway at ten forty-two on Friday night.

"Come on in," he says as he breezes past Misha without stopping.

For the moment, Jensen's only concern is for the incriminating box sitting on his coffee table with the much more incriminating contents. He beats Misha to the door by taking the stairs in twos, leaving just enough time to slide the box off the edge of the table and nudge it under with a toe. It's not the best hiding place, but it's better than nothing. Until he figures out how all this will shake out, Jensen plans to play as much as he can close to the vest.

The door clicks quietly closed at Misha's heels and Jensen's wound so tight he feels the air displace as it does.

Misha seems oblivious enough, the, "To what do I owe the terse invite?" rolling effortlessly off his tongue as he plants himself in the middle of Jensen's couch, one arm flung wide and curving to the contours of the cushions. The tightness around his mouth betrays him as much as the fingers tapping against his knee.

"Never figured you for asking stupid questions," Jensen answers, crossing back to the closet and his jacket to retrieve the crane they both know he has in his possession. He feels Misha's eyes on his back and can't help the smile that twitches at the corners of his mouth.

The crane he tosses in the middle of the coffee table, in amongst the back issues of _Sports Illustrated_ and next week's script, and he remembers how many times he's had the origami strewn across the surface both folded and open, sorting and resorting to try to make them make sense.

How now, they finally might.

Misha's fingers still, spreading across his thigh like he's at the same loose ends as Jensen.

"In this case it seemed appropriate," he says, eyes darting from his hand to the crane and back again. "Or at least necessary."

Bitch of it is that Misha's right, that Jensen might have skirted the issue for awhile trying to find an opening to ease the conversation through. The hours spent talking around things have worn him down to certainties and the idea that he might have actually _missed_ the cranes since they stopped coming, absurd as it is, hasn't been allowed time to root and flourish. That doesn't make it any less true.

"All I need to know is why, and so help me if you stretch the truth even a little I will know and I will kick your ass."

Misha huffs a quiet laugh, licking his lips in a way that makes Jensen want things regardless of the reasons, but he only gets as far as, "I-" before Jensen's phone vibrates on the hall table, the unmistakable sound of his mom's ringtone following half a beat later.

"Aren't you going to get that?" Misha asks, eyes flashing bright and Jensen lets go of the breath he didn't realize he was holding.

"Wasn't planning on it."

"It's rude to-"

"Oh fuck me, fine," he says. "If it means keeping you on track, I'll take the call. Give me five."

"By all means," Misha replies.

Jensen taps at the screen to answer with one foot already on the back deck. There are things he's not ready to do in Misha's presence yet. Talking to his mother is one of them. Especially since he has a good idea why she's calling.

Icarus darts past his ankles and out into the yard with a happy yip before Jensen manages to get the patio door shut all the way. Of course.

"Hey momma," he says, lowering himself onto the top step. "Now's not the best time."

"I gathered that by the eight rings it took for you to pick up."

"So?"

Jensen glances back over his shoulder at Misha. He's mostly behaving himself, still spread out all over the couch. The crane in his hands is the one Jensen tossed at him just a minute ago, so he doesn't seem to be nosing around unattended.

"A mother can't be curious?"

"About what, exactly," he says, slowly, carefully. Every fiber of his being wants to be back inside but he's trying not to take it out on her. It's not her fault.

"Your person. The one you called about."

"That's kind of why it's a bad time."

"Oh," she says, then again, "Oh! You have company. Good for you."

Even though it probably makes him a bad person, Jensen hates when she does that. It makes him feel like a puppy who just learned to sit or stay or not piss on the carpet. Which he's not. He watches Ick chase fireflies to the count of ten to keep from snapping.

"Yeah, so. You understand why it's a good idea to cut this short?"

"Of course I do. Promise you'll call me in the morning, though."

Jensen makes the mistake of glancing back a second time before he answers, his head filled with the crap he can't afford to have there about what tomorrow morning might hold for him.

And, "Fuck me," Misha has the box. Not only has it, but has it open.

His mother's voice, sharp in his ear, snaps him back. "Jensen Ross."

"Sorry," he says. "Sorry momma. I have to go." He can't seem to look away as Misha pulls the dragon out. Doesn't help that Misha looks right at him as he does it. "I'll call you tomorrow. Promise."

Jensen ends the call without saying goodbye, thumbing his phone to silent the second it clears completely.

It shouldn't be a big deal. Misha knows better than anyone what he wrote, what he folded, what he gave to Jensen or left lying around for him to pick up. But it _is_ a big deal, if only because Jensen kept them and that's proof enough for anyone with half a brain to think he cares.

And they'd be right.

He whistles Icarus in and spends a good five minutes brushing the grass out of his fur, the dew off his ears and paws. Prolonging the inevitable isn't usually his thing, but Jensen can't help dragging his feet now, especially if Misha's about to laugh in his face.

"We really fucked this one up, didn't we, dude?"

Icarus licks his hand then noses up under it to lay his chin on Jensen's knee.

"Yeah, yeah. I hear you. Not over 'til it's over," he says. "Let's go take our lumps."

Misha's not on the couch anymore when Jensen slips back through the sliding glass door, not that Ick seems to notice in his beeline to the food bowl, quintessential watchdog that he is. There's origami spread across the surface of the coffee table, a spray of color that makes Jensen uneasy even though there's absolutely no reason left to hide it.

The breath on his neck is new, so he turns into it, Misha suddenly and completely filling his field of vision.

"You kept them," Misha says and Jensen feels each consonant pop against his skin.

"Yeah, about that. I was just -" is as far as he gets because it's damn difficult to talk with a tongue in your mouth. With _another_ tongue in your mouth. By the time Jensen registers that Misha's kissing him, really kissing him, he's already started to pull away.

And that, well, that's not even in the same realm as okay.

Jensen threads his fingers through Misha's hair, thumbs braced against stubble and skin and bone, and he kisses back, nerves strung tight and singing. It's better than dreaming because Misha's not a silent if willing participant, and even in the heat of the moment Jensen does his best to memorize each and every place that pulls the muffled grunts Misha's making into a full-fledged groan. If nothing else, he likes to be thorough. And considerate.

That he's been thinking about this for what feels like forever has absolutely no bearing on his focus.

Misha's hands are at his shoulders, fingers dug in hard and Jensen doesn't know what to do with that except breathe, only he can't because he's still kissing Misha. This Misha, the real Misha smells like sweat and grass and tastes like cinnamon candy. It's so much better than a fiction, only he's pushing, the heels of his hands insistent as he steps back and away with a gasp.

"Wait, I - " he starts, but Jensen cuts him off because now sure as fuck ain't the time. Not with Misha's eyes so wide and bright. Not with his cheeks flushed. Not with his hair tufting out wildly like he just rolled out of bed.

"No. No heart-to-hearts," Jensen says, leaning in to lick a long stripe up the side of Misha's ridiculous neck, fitting his lips to the sweet hollow cut by the equally ridiculous jaw line. "You want to be here?"

"Is that even a question?" Misha asks, tension easing, hands dropping until he's thumbing at the sensitive skin in the bends of Jensen's elbows. It pulls his focus for a moment, a split second he has to close his eyes and marvel at the stupid serendipity of life.

Jensen smiles until his cheeks hurt from it, deciding once and for all to throw caution to the fucking wind. "I want you here. That's all I need to know right now."

And it is, because questions can wait. His 'why' and 'how' and 'what the fuck' don't have a place here, maybe never did. Jensen's tired of being careful every time the universe cuts him some slack, tired of hauling his bullshit baggage along for the ride. No matter what Misha felt the need to apologize for, he's here now.

Misha doesn't seem to want to let it go, but the warning, "Jensen," shifts tone abruptly with teeth at his throat and hands at his hips dragging him in. It's on the tip of Jensen's tongue to say something cheesy, something worthy of Dean Winchester's swagger-worthy repertoire like 'say my name'. In the end he decides to err on the side of caution. And actually getting laid.

Never in a million years would he have expected Misha to be so responsive, so easy. When he's imagined it, not that he ever has, Misha's always been as ridiculous and difficult between the sheets as not.

He should have known better than to relegate Misha to a box, does know better when he's thinking straight.

But then Misha pulls a move Jensen's only seen the once, back when he dated that dancer friend of Sandy's he would have sworn up and down was boneless or double-jointed or an alien, and he figures maybe he spoke too soon because he can't breathe around the lump in his throat. It makes him stumble back a step what with Misha suddenly shirtless, his back bowed in invitation, hipbones begging for Jensen's hands.

Jensen's struck suddenly, lost in the artistry of Misha's body - the curves and angles that add up to something made of grace, slim and devastating and yet still wholly male.

It's an inconvenient time to realize how long it's been since he did _this_ with another guy, but better now than twenty minutes down the road when they're both naked as a couple of jaybirds and the 'changed my mind' conversation would be a hell of a lot more awkward. He hasn't though, changed his mind. Not even in the midst of second-guessing and being out of practice and not knowing what to expect of Misha, from Misha.

So instead of freezing up, he traces the ridges of Misha's ribs, thumbs along the low-slung line of denim, savoring every tick and twitch and feline stretch like he's starving for them. Because he is and has been for awhile whether he wants to admit it or not. Regardless of what stirred this ache awake, he's been trundling willingly down this very road for too long to turn back.

For him, though, this has evolved beyond simple attraction, beyond an appreciation of the purely physical, and he wants it to be perfect. Always does.

Misha gasps, lips dry and parted until he licks them wet, and that's close enough.

"Fuck," Jensen says, and it sounds far away even in its absolute conviction.

"Less cursing, more nudity," Misha answers, slipping his hands beneath cotton to get at skin, tugging at the tail of Jensen's T-shirt with intent but ultimately leaving the final decision to him.

Because he's the one making this choice and the ocean in his ears is just the rush of blood finding better places to be. In spite of any evidence to the contrary, he knows exactly what the fuck he's doing. To prove the point, he strips the shirt off over his head as he backs away. It's not nearly as graceful or, frankly, impressive as Misha's mirror move, but it gets the job done even though his elbow catches in the neck hole.

"That better?" Jensen asks, and he can feel Misha looking his fill, skin going hot and tight wherever his gaze lands. When Misha meets his eyes again, the look in them is openly hungry, predatory.

"Much."

Jensen smiles, leans close to lick at the pink purse of Misha's lips just once. "Always aim to please."

"Jesus, Jensen," Misha says, fingertips tracing the curve of his collarbone like they've chanced upon a priceless rarity. "The things I'm going to do to you."

It's a little too much a little too soon, the implications settling in Jensen's gut with a sudden lurch that puts his limbs in motion, making the journey to his bedroom on autopilot if for no other reason than to escape Misha's inspection.

He's not nervous. Doesn't get nervous. Hasn't had stage fright since Kinder Care, but this isn't the stage and Misha has a way of stripping him down with every last article of clothing still in its rightful place. Jensen's not altogether sure he can handle the intensity of actually being naked with Misha, except for the fact he wants it so badly.

The hallway stretches on for what seems like miles, the master at the end painted silver by the moon peering through the blinds. Behind him, there's the soft thump of shoes against hardwood and then the heat of Misha following too close. Always too close and too far away, never finding the right rhythm or space to occupy. Jensen knows he needs light, wants it to map the subtle curves and unseen stretches of Misha's skin, to tame that wilderness into momentary certainty.

Instead of finding the switch, he laughs, thinking about how this is actually the second time Misha's been in his bedroom. How glad he is nothing happened that might have gotten lost to the cutting room floor of his bender, and he turns to say as much but Misha beats him there.

"Well that's discouraging," he says. "Guess that means I should reapply myself."

Jensen has no idea what he means until Misha steps into his space, the furrow between his brows wiped away by a wry grin half-hidden in shadow. And his hands, his _hands_ are everywhere, torturous in their diligence, unerring in their attention, Misha watching every reaction keenly as if his life depends on figuring out the precise sequence that makes Jensen squirm.

And Jensen lets him.

Misha catches his eye then and holds it, marks the lines of Jensen's cheekbones with his thumbs and a tenderness that makes his breath catch in his chest. "Laughter has its place," he says. "But this isn't it."

"Trust me when I say I wasn't laughing at you."

"Didn't think you were," Misha says.

Then Jensen forgets all about the light, because there's a knee wedged between his and finally, finally sweet friction, Misha pressed against him, soft skin and firm flesh. He'll worry about compiling his own catalog in the morning, because no power on this earth could make him willingly stop Misha now. It's everything he wanted and nothing like he'd imagined - the slow climb to fever pitch supplanting a frantic one - and he should have known Misha would be a contradiction. By the time fingers fumble at the button on his jeans he's hard behind the zipper, aching for a touch far more focused than the slope of Misha's hip through too many layers.

His balance falters when he steps back to give Misha room to work, heel sliding on a corner of the comforter that dangles from the edge of the bed. Misha catches him, holds him fast with a hand on his wrist and another in the small of his back, pressure and the hard line of Misha's cock sliding against his and _fuck_ he's through with slow. But Misha mouths at his neck, his lips, swirling circles of heat past cotton and denim with his fingertips, and it distracts him.

"Careful," Misha says against Jensen's skin, breath warm in his ear. "You'll want to be awake for this."

"Will I?" Jensen asks and Misha hums, hands drifting again to the button on his jeans, popping it open, the zipper peeling apart slow and sure after. And if he didn't already feel like his skin was on fire, when Misha hooks his thumbs in both sets of waistbands and starts to ease the fabric down, he lights up from the inside out.

It's enough to stir him to action, make him realize he's been standing here stupidly letting this happen to him instead of participating, instead of being in the moment where he belongs. He looks at Misha, really looks, the catch of his lower lip between his teeth as he tugs the band down and over the jut of Jensen's cock, hands hot against his thighs, and he wants.

All the confusion and doubt of the past month crystallizes, shatters under the meticulous application of Misha's hands, and how Misha, in his way, was asking for this in revealing himself. Jensen doesn't take his time with the fastenings on Misha's pants, can't take the time, and whatever misgivings he may have had about this being the right thing are gone, burnt up and scattered like so much ash. Misha bends with him, into him, lips seared to the side of his neck, teeth sharp along the plane of his jaw as Jensen finally gets his hands where he wants them, shoving at what's left of Misha's clothes.

He mutters a soft, "Fuck," because he can't help himself then kicks out of his jeans, watches as Misha does the same, socks quickly discarded atop the crumpled pile. And Jensen looks his fill, maps the curve of Misha's ass before he tests the weight of Misha's dick against his palm. Misha hisses, hips canted into the touch, fingers sharp and neck arched at an impossible angle that's just asking for a tongue, his tongue, and Jensen's happy to offer it.

Misha tastes like sweat too, salty and warm and he's heavy, hard in Jensen's hand. No matter how eager he is for this, it's still odd enough that he's making it up as he goes. Not that he doesn't understand the concept of sex, he does, but this isn't a drunken fuck in an alley or the stockroom of a bar and Misha isn't dragging him anywhere.

So he learns the shape of Misha's lips again, the slick sweep of his tongue, counts the bumps of Misha's spine with his fingers until Misha makes a noise low in his throat and backs them both towards the bed. His knees hinge when they hit the edge, and he topples gracelessly back into the tangle of sheets, Misha's knee planted between his thighs.

Somehow, Misha manages to avoid tumbling on top of him, a fact which seems neither fair nor right and even given the incredibly distracting fact that Misha's stroking himself hard, Jensen feels the need right now for a bit of solid ground. So he levers himself up enough to make a grab for Misha's free arm and Misha does tumble, rolling onto his back at the last second. Jensen uses the momentum to roll with him, settles his knees alongside Misha's hips to pin him in.

"Are these the spaces between?" Jensen asks, his voice crackling, lips parched from sucking uneven breaths.

He tries to focus but falters when Misha shifts his hips, pressing in and up and then there's a stripe of pre-come smeared along his stomach. Misha, of course, seizes the opportunity, and Jensen pitches forward onto his hands, can't not, when Misha wraps them up cock-to-cock and tugs.

"You tell me," Misha answers finally, his lips pressed into the bend of Jensen's elbow. "Have I found you?"

Jensen moans when Misha's grip tightens, rhythm steadying even as it speeds. It renders him breathless for a long stretch of seconds and he has to scramble against the fucking electrical storm already gathering, building under his skin.

"Wait," he grits out. "Wait."

"Have I?" Misha asks, his own throat bared with a gasp, thumb drawing slick patterns up and over until Jensen can't readily discern where he ends and Misha begins.

There are worse sensations and he can't think of any better at the moment, but there are things he wants. Things that would be more difficult to find his way to if he shoots early like some overeager teenager. Misha's unrelenting though, firm grasp only loosened to push at Jensen's shoulders again and shove him over, a shimmy of sweet skin and sinew before his hand returns with a friend. Misha's lips, spit-slicked and soft, close around the head of his cock, the flat of his tongue pressed against that bundle of nerves that makes Jensen buck every single time. Like the freak of nature he is, Misha rides it out, some instinct telling him to pull back when Jensen loses himself and his control to the sensation.

It's all too much of what he wants for Jensen to consider reasserting himself, and that word - synergy - flits through his head again as Misha's fingers slide south pressing in behind his balls in a way he's never had, never known he wanted.

And, "Fuck me," he's lost, dick twitching against the roof of Misha's mouth as all rational thought attempts to shut down, neurons sparking on the curve of a knuckle, Misha's dark chuckle reverberating down his length before his lips slide free with a pop.

"That's the idea," Misha says, hand slack and teasing now in a way that makes Jensen want to shake him. "Unless there's a different bee in your bonnet."

Jensen's answer goes missing somewhere between brain and mouth, a protest that's not really a protest at all but comes out sounding like, "Bwuh?" because Misha plays dirty. Because Jensen's too focused on his dick and the way Misha's mouth feels around it, the way his tongue curls down the vein to worry.

Jensen has always been the guy who understands the value of patience and that next time, next time, when his toes aren't already curling against the bed and it's not taking every last ounce of his focus to keep from bucking up into Misha's mouth, next time he'll have what he wants. So he spreads his hands against the heat of Misha's scalp, fingers sliding in sweat, and hangs on. Misha doesn't disappoint, humming happily as Jensen's thighs drift wider for him, his thumb circling and teasing but not quite pushing. Then he does ease down, farther, faster, and Jensen feels the head of his cock slide past the back of Misha's tongue, feels the resistance and then the tight band of Misha's throat constricting around him as he swallows.

And he has the space of half a breath, one final second of sanity to think, "Did that just happen? Is it happening now?" before the world gets whitewashed. He almost bites his own tongue in half because he's coming, choking around the air, trying not to force himself deeper but _jesusfuckingchrist_ Misha's still swallowing around him slow and steady. Then his arms stop working the way they should, flopping boneless to the bed along with his legs, the sheets cool and sticking in the pools of sweat gathered behind his knees.

His heart's still racing, ten beats in the space of two when Misha finally leans back, and Jensen's muscles clench involuntarily as his dick slaps down against his stomach.

At this point, the "Fuck," is compulsory.

There's a rustle of bedcovers and Misha smirks, or Jensen thinks he does. He's not actually on board with prying his eyes open just yet to see, but he can hear it in Misha's voice.

"I don't know whether to respond with pride or concern," Misha says. "I've never sent someone into a cognitive loop."

Jensen kicks out at him to shut him up, mostly because verbal warfare doesn't jive with his current state of awesome. His foot doesn't land of course. Having your eyes closed kind of fucks with your aim and Misha catches him by the heel, plants a kiss against his ankle that makes Jensen feel stupid and girly and not nearly ready for this.

Moving still seems to be off the agenda though, at least for him, so he doesn't bother trying to follow when Misha shifts away.

He does manage to work an eyelid open when he hears the contents of his medicine cabinet being emptied into the sink, plastic rattling against porcelain until there are footsteps again, close and purposeful, the scrape of wood on wood and the crinkle of plastic packaging following soon thereafter. Misha's face swings into view, and even blurred out by his lashes Jensen can tell the smile he's wearing means trouble.

Jensen thinks maybe keeping his eyes closed is a workable plan.

The bed dips a second time, taking Misha's weight, and before Jensen can clear his throat to ask, Misha's fingers are back, cool and slippery and painfully cautious.

"Jensen," he says. "Jensen, look at me."

And Jensen does. Partly because right now he'd probably do whatever Misha asked of him if it meant getting his brain scrambled like that again sometime soon. Partly because he wants to know. Partly because he feels compelled to return the favor.

The moonlight cuts Misha's face in half with shadow. Even so, Jensen can see the barely-contained urgency, the rhythmic shift of his shoulder that he's either too far gone or too unashamed to hide.

His voice doesn't sound like his own anymore, ripped ragged and slow when he says, "Yeah?"

Misha's thumb slicks down, and Jensen feels the press of it between his cheeks, feels Misha shake a deep breath in and then back out.

"I need to know," Misha says, so undone by the asking that Jensen wouldn't dream of denying.

"Yeah," Jensen answers. "Yes." And he stirs his traitorous limbs into action, rolling up onto hands and knees because it doesn't take a doctorate level degree in gay sex to know what will probably work best.

Misha promptly joins the cognitive loop already in progress, his hiss and, "Fuck" followed by a reverential exploration of Jensen's back, the backs of his thighs, his ass. It makes Jensen wonder what gave him such patience, because if he weren't already fucked out and someone gave him the go ahead he sure as shit wouldn't be stopping to smell the roses or admire the pretty.

It is, however, his ass, so he can't fault Misha for looking.

Then there's pressure without preamble, Misha's fingers newly slicked and nudged in tight, teasing against him until they're not. Muscle gives and Misha's free hand flies to his hip, a litany of filth pushed out into the air with Jensen's name caught in the middle, but he can't focus on that. What he can focus on is the way Misha's knuckle bumps against his ass, the way Misha shifts the angle of his deliberate slide, finger crooked and brushing up against that mystical fucking cluster of nerve endings that puts him on his elbows. And breathing. And hanging on to his motionless zen state. And the harsh noises Misha's trying to keep under wraps for God knows what reason. His dick gives an interested twitch that it really should not be capable of, but then it's Misha and Jensen's personally known Misha to do a thousand impossible things before breakfast. Coaxing his cock back awake with nothing but a finger is probably number three thousand and twelve.

Jensen breathes again, deep and even and takes a chance, rocks back into Misha's hand. It starts a twitch along his inner thigh and a new flood of unintelligible muttering from Misha. In general it doesn't feel good or even bad necessarily, just kind of weird but Misha's obviously lost the plot.

His chin slides in the sheen of sweat on his shoulder when he looks back, and Misha's gone, pupils blown wide in the low light, hips jerking in abortive little thrusts as he bites his lip bloody being careful.

"Do it," Jensen says, because what else can you say to that.

Confirmation is all that Misha seems to have been missing, because as soon as the 't' rolls off Jensen's tongue, he's pulling his hand back and replacing it with his cock in a long slow slide that steals the breath from Jensen's lungs. And _fuck_ but he gets it now, feeling full and taken and Misha petting him as he gnaws a hole in the comforter trying to get to air.

Misha stays as still as he can as long as he can, the shiver that shimmies from his thighs to Jensen's says as much. Eventually, he can't help it, the easy pace turning wild in a roll of hips that Jensen swears is going to drag him inside out in the best way, except Misha's hands find him and hold him steady. It only takes a breath for Misha to find a rhythm, and when he does it's more about depth and angle than speed, and Jensen can appreciate the slap of Misha's skin against his, the little grunts that spill between Misha's lips whenever his hips find Jensen's ass.

"Not going to last," Misha mutters, breathless and shaky, grip shifting until his fingers dig in and Jensen aches with it. "Want to. Fuck yes. _Jesus_ , Jensen."

And as much as he's thought about Misha, Misha's mouth, Misha's hands, Misha's stupid fucking smile, he hasn't thought about this and isn't prepared for what it does to him, how it effects him to have Misha coming undone inside him. It almost makes him wish he hadn't already come himself, almost. It does make him wish he could see Misha's face to watch him fall apart. He settles for arching his back, stretching an arm out to brace against the wall, feeling the moment Misha's rhythm falters and the one after that nearly ends with Jensen on the floor, Misha shoving himself flush and groaning his way through orgasm. It's satisfying in ways Jensen hadn't counted on when Misha slips sideways and collapses on his rumpled sheets, lacking wherewithal to do anything but strip the condom, tie it off, and drop it in the bedside wastebasket.

Jensen knows he should take stock but the lure of stretching out far outweighs any potential pain. As it turns out, his knees are the angriest, his ass a secondary low-level ache that only serves to remind him what he just did, what they just did, and he's pretty fucking okay with that.

Misha's quiet though, suspiciously so aside from breathing his way down to a more sensible heart rate, and Jensen's not sure how to take that.

"So," Jensen says. "Still want to be here?" Not that he doubts, he doesn't, he just - wants it to be okay.

Misha coughs, then laughs a secret little laugh that Jensen's never heard before. "You should be illegal," he says. "Fucking controlled substance."

"I'm gonna take that as a yes," Jensen says.

If he was a chick, Jensen would also say he rolls over onto his side so he can watch Misha bask, but he's not and so he does it only because the bundle of blankets tangled in the small of his back are driving him apeshit. Really. Of course, it's not like he's going to kick a moonlit Misha out of bed or anything. Without the past few weeks nipping at his heels, pushing him harder and faster, demanding 'now' and 'take', Jensen gets a chance to truly appreciate the long lines and subtle curves, the hummingbird flutter of Misha's stomach muscles as he winds his way down.

So much better than dreaming.

Misha's eyes are closed, his lashes a sweep of charcoal against his cheeks, lips slightly parted and it hits Jensen like an echo - that other bedroom, the one at Jay and Gen's where he thought all this started. He wonders what else he's been wrong about along the way, if Misha's sole purpose was to get them here. Maybe that's where the apology comes in.

No time like the present to ask. Captive audience, subject, prisoner - what the fuck ever. He has the mystery folder blissed beyond reason beside him. It's a golden damn opportunity.

Still.

Nothing wrong with priming the pipes either.

Jensen shifts up on an elbow, leans in to tongue at Misha's lips without purpose or pretense because he can, and Misha invites him in - blunt fingernails scraping at the back of his neck to hold him steady. Misha kisses like he does everything, and Jensen recognizes the resonance in it too, kicking back to when they met and that first scene where Misha was weird and intense and mischievous and yet still managed to be a consummate professional. Somewhere between Misha's teeth snagging against his lower lip and the scrape of stubble against his chin, Jensen forgets where he was going.

Or he does until he pulls back a little too dizzy for just kissing and thumbs the spit from Misha's mouth.

"Awful lot of effort," Jensen says, stroking the dip between Misha's collarbones. "Should I feel privileged?"

Misha smiles. It's crooked and sleepy and Jensen's tempted to get up because he feels it in places you aren't supposed to feel smiles.

"Very," Misha answers finally. "Like the fucking crown prince of Luckytown. I am in your bed, after all."

"Careful," Jensen says, pressing the flat of his nail against Misha's nipple until he sucks a breath between his teeth. "After all that trouble, it'd be awfully disappointing to crush me under the weight of your ridiculous ego."

"I'll take it under advisement."

Jensen snorts and flops on his back, untangles enough of the sheet to gather it around his waist. It's not out of some misplaced sense of modesty but more the film of sweat and lube and fuck knows what else drying on his skin making him cold. Or maybe it's something else, something like fear that he doesn't want to actually admit to. Doesn't matter either way. He has things he has to say.

"Never really figured you for the slow seduction type," he says. "I think I'd actually be less surprised if you'd strolled up and said, 'Let's fuck'."

If the roll of Misha's shoulders wasn't enough to put him on edge, the sigh that follows does the job just fine. Too late to turn back now.

"I don't know if you noticed, but I'm actually a dude. That kind of romance is generally lost on me." Jensen tries to keep his tone neutral, casual. The last thing he wants to have a lengthy discussion about right now is the fact that the poetry and secrecy were _not_ actually lost on him. He'd be forced to deny it, then Misha would start spouting gender theory at him and go dig through the mess he left in the sink for some ex-girlfriend's abandoned lipstick. Less messy all around to ignore it.

Misha's smart. He'll glean the real meaning eventually.

"Jensen," Misha says, and he can hear the 'but' tacked onto it even though the 'you don't get it' hasn't actually come out yet. He knows it's coming. "I thought you understood. That you'd finally pieced it all together. Hell, I thought maybe Jared clubbed you over the head with a fucking clue and led you into the light."

Jensen squints at Misha, but Misha only stares at the ceiling like it's the most fascinating thing he's ever seen.

"Still winding the dark and clubless roads of cluelessness here," Jensen says. "Got a match?"

"Only if you swear not to douse me in kerosene."

The longer Misha stalls, the more creative Jensen gets and he's on the verge of dismissing everything that's happened in the last hour as bullshit if he doesn't get confirmation otherwise, so the truth can't possibly make this any fucking worse.

"Seriously Misha, spill," Jensen says, and Misha seems to get the tone if not the specific meaning.

Misha does look at him then, grabs for his wrist like he's afraid Jensen will disappear before he comes clean. Jensen lets him. For now.

"It was a prank," he says. "I got, _we_ got carried away."

"We, as in Jared?" Jensen has to ask even though he already knows. "As in, you've both been playing me since the beginning. As in, he knew who it was way back when I accused Cheyenne? Fuck."

"Jensen, it wasn't like -"

"No," he says, unwrapping Misha's fingers one by one. "Just. No. You don't get to justify this. What could you possibly say to make it okay?"

"I didn't know it was -"

"Didn't know what? That I've spent the last few weeks going quietly insane?"

Misha reaches for him again, and Jensen glares until his hand drops against the rumpled sheets.

"Will you let me explain?"

"Don't really give a shit. You were both screwing with me because you thought you could." Jensen huffs a laugh, feeling the ache of it settle in behind his ribs. "Screwing me now just to see if you can."

"You really think I'm capable of - "

"Yes. You're totally equipped to sleep with me because you want to see the experiment through. Apparently, it's the way you're fucking wired."

Misha's eyes go hard, lips thinned down to a narrow pink line as he spits the, "Finished?" between his teeth.

"Sure," Jensen answers, because for the hundred things he wants to say, there's not a one that will make a damn bit of difference. He's tired of feeling like an idiot and trying to find ways to offload the frustration into his work - so tired he's not even plotting revenge. When coupled with that cryptic note Misha left alongside the dragon and the insane week he spent missing the origami, this pushes him over the edge.

Misha looks ready to say something, probably make excuses or beg forgiveness, and that's the last thing Jensen wants to listen to right now.

"Just go," Jensen says, eyes shut tight, and Misha surprises him with silence. He feels the bed dip, hears the rustle of fabric and the jangle of change, footsteps retreating down the hall. A car starts outside and Icarus whimpers, then there's nothing to disturb the stillness, nothing to keep him from drifting off to sleep but the chorus of pointless questions bouncing around between his ears.


	8. Chapter 8

When Jensen finally rolls out of bed Saturday, it's early afternoon.

Pretending last night didn't happen is pretty fucking difficult when you're still wearing the evidence, and while Jensen's good at telling himself whatever he wants to hear, his top priority involves one scalding shower and a bar of soap. Icarus, of course, has other ideas - the low whimpering sound he makes coupled with a wild scramble for the back door when Jensen peels the sheets back can only mean one thing.

Jensen temporarily rearranges his priorities because scraping dog shit off the travertine in the kitchen is on that ubiquitous list of things he never wants to do. Either way, it's a compelling enough reason to step into last night's pants and follow Ick instead of letting the water run hot in the master bath like he wants to.

Priorities are important.

The way the seam of his jeans rubs across oversensitive skin is _not_ a priority, but then neither is the dark blue T-shirt still slung across the corner of the end table in the living room where he peeled it off last night.

Jensen notices both, so preoccupied that he forgets to push the patio door open for Icarus until the frantic pawing cuts through the fog.

"Sorry buddy," he says to the white blur that streaks past. "Not all here this morning."

It must have rained sometime during the night. The wood beneath his feet feels sodden and the air carries that fresh smell he's always associated with spring and new beginnings. Out here there are no triggers to overlook, but there's also nothing to distract him from the fact that he put all his money on the table last night and walked away empty-handed.

Not that he cares, he doesn't. It just - kinda sucks.

Icarus streaks along the fence line after a squirrel and Jensen watches, lets his mind wander as far as it will because he's not ready to think seriously about what happened any more than he's ready to admit it bothers him. It does, of course, and now that he's thought the thought he can't skirt his irritation quite so easily.

Given a second chance, he'd do just about everything differently. The cranes, for a start, would have gone straight into the trash. Screw the mystery. The dreams would have gone ignored until they inevitably went away. Yet, despite the extenuating circumstances and the wildly inaccurate assumptions he'd made about Misha's reasons for being here, Jensen can't quite regret the sex. He's not sure if that makes him fucked up, stupid, or a little bit of both.

It is what it is.

Icarus, meanwhile, has given up on flushing his newfound furry friend out of the oak in the back corner of the lot. Jensen only knows because there's either warm, slobbery sandpaper being rubbed across his ankle or Ick is licking him.

"C'mon kid," he says. "Let's get inside before the neighbors start staring."

Icarus yips and scampers to the patio door, dive bombing his toy basket as soon as he clears the thresh-hold. The rope pull he comes up with was originally intended for Harley, so not only does it make him look completely ridiculous, but it also sets Jensen's teeth on edge. As much as he hates to deny Ick anything, what he needs more than anything right now is a fucking shower.

The multi-colored hurricane of paper strewn across the surface of the coffee table stops him though, some of it folded, some unfolded, every last crease of it a lie. So there is _one_ thing he needs more than that shower. It takes a grand total of ten seconds to scoop all of it back into a box. Less than that to shove the box in the kitchen trash can and slam the lid back in place.

There's a soft whine behind him and Icarus trots in, the frayed ends of the pull wriggling when he tilts his head, eyes wide and watery. It's all Jensen can do to take the coward's way out, mutter, "Hold that thought," under his breath and slip down the hall into the master bath.

With the door shut behind him, Jensen's world narrows to routines. Water. Shampoo. Soap. He stays under the spray even after he's scrubbed himself clean, lets the water pound against his back and loosen the muscles that have gone tight from staying in bed too long. In the absence of other stimuli, his mind finds its way into dangerous territory again, and this time he gives it leave to go.

Sooner or later he's going to have to hash it out, and now is highly fucking preferred to Monday on set when he's left with no other choice. Sleep has cooled the anger if not the sense of betrayal, but he's not sure who he should be angry at to begin with. Misha for the prank, Jared for the assist, or himself for giving a shit about any of it. In hindsight, he's struck by the complete and utter absurdity of it all.

At least in part, the blame rests on his own shoulders. When it comes to pranks, Jay and Misha both tend to have short attention spans designed for immediate gratification, visceral punchlines. Had he not reacted the way he did, neither of them would have strung him along like this because it wouldn't have been worth the effort. The reason why he responded to the origami the way he did is something he'd rather not examine any more closely than he already has.

They took unfair advantage, sure, but took it without knowing the extent of what they were taking. He shouldn't have cared then, shouldn't care now, and so he never mentioned how much it mattered to anyone. His mom knows because of who she is, but like Misha said, they were playing a prank that got out of hand. What made Misha think it had gotten out of hand, Jensen can't begin to guess.

None of it gets him any closer to explaining what happened last night

The water goes cool on his skin, soothing the heat spread across the back of his neck and Jensen lets the water run cold before he reaches back to flick it off. He feels better if slightly sheepish and he has the sudden urge to call Misha and apologize, but he's not sure why. Instead he snags the towel from the rack and puts it to work, wrapping it around his waist once he's done.

As soon as he cracks the bathroom door, he hears Icarus going apeshit in the entryway - high, keening whines paired with a series of sharp, staccato barks. Jensen doesn't bother with pants, electing to knot the towel tighter as he pads quickly down the hall, Icarus' yips rising to a howl. He does bother with the baseball bat in the hall closet. Just in case.

There's nothing in the hallway, nothing in the kitchen or living room as he takes a quick survey, but when he finally arrives, there's also nothing in the foyer either but one very upset pup.

"Ick. Icarus," he says. "Settle."

Outside, something rustles against the bushes and Icarus whines again, the sound of a car door slamming rising clear above the noise. Jensen's seen enough action movies to know that you don't open up right away. It might be a time or motion-sensitive charge. After twenty seconds, he still has all his limbs and Ick's panic has abated to the point he's pawing at the kickplate and panting happily.

Sometimes, Jensen thinks it would be nice to be a dog. So much less complicated.

Still wary, he cracks the front door open. There's a box on the doormat. No note. No explanation. No known owner. It's entirely too early to rule out the whole bomb thing, but Jensen wonders if this might actually be worse. It could be a dead rabbit or a gerbil or a squirrel or who the fuck knows. Weirder shit has happened.

Once he gets it inside and open, Jensen can't decide if the contents are more or less disturbing than a bomb.

Origami. Origami of the crane variety. Ten of them. And a note written in the same sloping, slightly messy handwriting he's pored over endlessly in the last few weeks. Misha's handwriting.

 

> Eye for an eye, Jen. These were never meant for yours, but one truth deserves another.
> 
> The game clock ticked down a week ago. I couldn't stop. I'll take every advantage offered, frequently and with gusto, but I didn't take that one.
> 
> I'm truly sorry.
> 
> -M

 

In the bottom right corner of the page, two stick figures with disproportionately sized dicks are perpetrating obscene acts upon one another. If Jensen had any doubt about the identity of 'M', those doodles alone are confirmation.

The cranes themselves are a mixed bag of colors, textures, paper conditions. There are two he can tell were folded from script pages, one from a piece of set dressing. The others are done mostly in white with the crisp, careful creases he's come to expect.

Jensen's not sure he's ready for this either, but time can't fix that, so he sits himself down in the spot where Misha sprawled last night and starts to read.

On the first:

> Leapt without looking today   
> trying to make myself heard.   
> Saw your hands fold together  
> and needed them on my skin.  
> Watched your brow wrinkle  
> and wanted to ease the uncertainty  
> that cut the furrow there.  
> And I knew, finally, I was lost. 

And the second:

> Is there action in attraction? Are lies made true through repetition? 

And the third:

> Guilt is not what buys my silence. I want to be sure of myself. And of you, inasmuch as I can be. You don't hold the monopoly on caution, despite what you may think of my disposition. 

He reads through the rest quickly, grateful to have the last missing piece to snap into place. The second time through, Jensen savors, takes time to build the week around the tenor of Misha's words - words he was never supposed to see - and he thinks at last he understands.

Last night wasn't the endgame but a gambit, and the crane in his trailer the catalyst. Both were about Misha owning up to the fact that he was and is also more invested than he should be. It couldn't have been easy, knowing what he'd done, uncertain of Jensen's forgiveness and the quality of his obsession.

Jensen refolds each of the cranes but one and places them back in the box. He rescues its match from the trash even though he feels like a giant fucking girl doing it. It also feels right. They stack together, edge to edge, and Jensen smiles as he slides them back where they belong, on the top shelf of his bookcase.

The last one he lays on the island in the kitchen for later. No matter how many times he's unfolded and refolded these things, he's going to need a pattern.

His mom calls around seven to read him the riot act and promise that she's going shopping for a new son in the morning. Considering what a pain in the ass he's been lately, Jensen figures it's probably fair. She hears the difference in his tone, he's sure of it, but doesn't pry or comment. Jensen thanks his lucky stars for her and the plain fact that she doesn't force him into 'talking about it' unless he needs her to.

Her single, solitary acknowledgement of the change is a, "I'm happy you're happy, baby," tacked on the tail end of their conversation.

When they hang up, there are two texts from Jared in his inbox. The first, sent at 11:30 last night, reads, "Jared: 1. Misha:1. Jensen:-5." Jay likes to gloat. And refer to himself in the third person when he's drunk. The second came in this morning around 10:15, and reads, "Dude. I suck hard. Misha wanted to stop."

For now, it's apology enough to keep Jensen from plotting any Machiavellian-worthy revenge. Eventually, when he's not quite so zen with the world and all its works, there will be hell to pay.

It takes an hour to produce a crane he considers worthy. Unsurprisingly, he was right about needing a reference and if the thing had given him any more shit, he'd have been resigned to some very serious Googling. Turns out the order of folds is important, and when he's not following pre-made ones, it's harder to sequence. In spite of that, the whole process is highly meditative, and he lets himself reexamine the past few weeks as he turns, creases and recreases paper. With distance and knowledge, he can see the progression, each time Misha said more than he was actually saying.

Truth's a tricky thing when you're forced to read between the lines.

Being on set Monday is an extended exercise in abusing his power.

They deserve that much.

Even as he does it, Jensen fully recognizes the childishness of giving them both the silent treatment, but he's always found it more effective than all the sound and fury he can muster. He delivers his lines as written, but beyond that relays any necessary messages through a convenient PA. Cheyenne finds the entire situation hilarious and does her best to hover so she's the one he looks to. In his downtime, Jensen makes a point to talk to other people. Danny goes a little wide-eyed when he strolls up unannounced and starts discussing mics and heads and amps, but eventually relaxes into a full-on verbal flood of brand names and cymbal manufacturers that Jensen can't begin to follow.

Misha appears no less than a dozen times in his periphery, and if Jensen was any less pissed or patient, he'd give in. As it stands, it's a close thing.

Jared catches on about halfway through their day and retaliates by matching tactics. Cheyenne doesn't find having conversations with herself quite as funny, and conveniently relocates herself somewhere outside the line of fire.

When they wrap around 7, Jay raises an eyebrow at him and says, "That's a pretty pathetic pound of flesh, Jen. But I get it." before he stalks off to his trailer.

Misha's still busy with a rare angel-only scene and probably will be for a couple of hours. Aside from some epic jaw clenching, he's been careful all day to allow Jensen his absurdity. It's restraint Jensen appreciates under the circumstances.

The crane that's been riding in his back pocket all day has never felt heavier than in the twenty seconds it takes him to cross the street and sidle into the shadows at the head of the alley where they're filming. He watches Misha work for longer than he should, his easy smile, the spark of mischief always burning just beneath the surface. And Jensen's not sure, but he thinks he should probably be concerned that he recognizes the instant he slips Castiel's skin and becomes himself again.

No matter what comes of this leap, Jensen will always appreciate that.

He leaves the crane perched in the black canvas sling of Misha's chair, trusting him to understand the gesture as the olive branch it is.

Jensen's dozing his way through a UFC bout from two weeks ago when Misha knocks. The clock seems to think it's midnight, but that's damned impossible since he's only been home an hour. Still, he doesn't actually remember who's facing who, so there's a chance he's not the authority on time right now. Icarus yips happily from his perch on the floor, tail thumping even though he's apparently too comfortable to get up and investigate.

"Guess it's up to me to get it," Jensen says. Icarus pants at him, tongue lolling and lays his head back down on his paws. "Lazy ass."

The Misha that Jensen opens the door to is - not lazy. Even after a sixteen hour day and behind the mask of exhaustion that's threatening to slip, this Misha blows the one from Friday night out of the fucking water. Intent and disheveled and Jensen can feel the want spilling off him in waves.

"You lost something," Misha says, palming the crane out of his pocket, holding it out like a gift, a chance for Jensen to take it back if he wants, change his mind.

"No, I didn't," Jensen answers stupidly. The words don't carry the impact he'd like them to seeing as they're the first ones he's spoken directly to Misha since he kicked him out. Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones. Nonetheless, his heart still thumps hard in his chest, blood rushing in his ears, and he feels suddenly, completely naked beneath the weight of Misha's scrutiny.

It's right, and good and all those other things he refuses to think about in case his forgiveness is undeserved.

For now, he just swings the door wide and steps aside to let Misha in.

 

**FINIT**


	9. Epilogue

Six months in, lazy Sunday afternoons have become something of a staple whether they actually fall on a Sunday or not.

This would be one of those times it doesn't.

Production picks back up tomorrow though, so there's work to be done regardless of where it's done. Lines to memorize. Emotional notes to unearth. Jensen's been doing his due diligence since ten with a highlighter stuck between his teeth and pencil leaving graphite on his knuckles.

That Misha has shown the patience he has for as long as he has is starting to twig Jensen out, just a little. After the first hour spent watching him read, Misha had gotten antsy and gone to slip into running gear just as the skies opened up. He's still wearing the shorts and a T-Shirt that's seen better days, but his feet are bare and dangling, his knees curled over the arm of the chair he's hunkered down in. The book in his lap has also seen better days. Jensen recognizes it vaguely, thinks it was a biographical reconstruction of the life of one of the lesser known Sioux chiefs, but can't remember whether he ever finished it or not.

Even considering the time that's passed, it's odd to have Misha here when they're not actively doing something, be it fucking or fighting or getting ready to go out. Misha seems content to be though, and that's a new enough development to make his chest go tight no matter how stupid it is.

Jensen shakes it off, has to if he has any hope of finishing in the next decade and he's already refocused on his script when he hears Misha make a noise, a soft, "Oh," that finds its way through Jensen's resolve with all the precision of a sledgehammer.

The script in his hand lands on the coffee table seconds later.

"What?" Jensen asks, echoing Misha's, "Oh," when he produces a paper crane that's presumably been flattened between the pages since its inception.

He'd forgotten. Almost forgotten.

Misha twirls the bird between two fingers by its tail and refrains, somehow, from breaking it open to see what's written inside. They made their peace a long time ago and even though Jensen's eyes flick quickly to the top of the bookshelf against the wall, he already knows the boxes won't be there.

They aren't gone, just condensed and put away - a secret between them now that everyone else has forgotten.

"I never did explain, did I?" Misha says and Jensen watches the curl of his hand as he peels the wings back and gives the crane its volume.

"You don't - "

"In the beginning, it wasn't about this," Misha says. "Or the prank. I've been folding for years off and on when I needed a way to organize my thoughts, keep idle hands busy between scenes. Clear my head."

"That makes sense."

Jensen remembers the confusion too well to focus on the why, though he supposes it's good to know Misha didn't learn just to torment him.

"I had no idea you'd found them until Jared caught me at it. The rest, as they say, is history."

The familiar folds must fascinate him, because Misha can't seem to tear himself away. These days, Jensen reads him more clearly, be it time or proximity or that unfathomable concept of synergy. Not that Misha's ever worn guilt particularly well, he doesn't. He always looks like a petulant child on the verge of tantrum. And this is not worth it.

Three long strides carry Jensen across the living room, and when he kneels in front of the chair Misha finally looks up. He takes and sets aside both book and crane while Misha stares at him, his features carefully schooled.

It's ridiculous and endearing and makes Jensen want to kiss him breathless, so he does. Tastes the orange Misha distracted himself with when his run got rained out.

It be the road less traveled, but Jensen still ended up exactly where he wants to be.

Misha smiles against his lips, fingers tangling at the neck of his T-shirt and Jensen pulls back because there's something he's never said that he needs to put out there, just so they're clear.

"I forgive you."

"For unleashing my full complement of feminine wiles or for accidentally wooing you with notes like a pre-pubescent girl?"

Jensen leans into the thumb tracing idle patterns against his collarbone and smiles.

"As long as you remember I'm not the one who said it."

Misha barks a laugh and winds himself tighter, one hand sneaking up under the tail of Jensen's T-shirt like he won't notice.

"Where's the fun in that?" Misha asks, the corner of his mouth quirking up. "Kind of hard to have glorious make-up sex if I'm not actually pissed at you to begin with."

Jensen thinks he should probably be concerned for his own mental health and welfare, because he can't find the flaw in Misha's logic.

"Fine," he says. "You fucking girl."

"That's more like it," Misha answers, fingertips digging into the ridge of muscle stretched the length of Jensen's spine.

"Fucking girl with delusions of Shakespeare."

"I'd wager this might have ended differently if I'd spent a month comparing you to a summer's day."

As ridiculous as the whole ordeal had been, Jensen can't deny that he'd been waiting for something for awhile. He may never know for sure if that thing is Misha, but right now he's going to lay even odds and play the hand life's dealt him the best way he knows how.

"Maybe," Jensen says, leaning in to nip at the swell of Misha's lower lip. "Maybe not."

"Now who's the girl?" Misha asks, knee nudging at Jensen's shoulder, sharp and bony. Jensen wedges his hand into the bend of it and lifts, swinging Misha's leg up and over until it's slung across his shoulder, heel dug into his back. It means losing Misha's hands on him, but it's completely worth it to watch Misha's eyes go dark with a different kind of passion.

"I forgive you," Jensen says again, pressing another stupid grin into Misha's thigh.

There's an undercurrent, a thread of something indefinable caught in Misha's voice when he answers, one hand tangled in Jensen's hair like he's hanging on for dear life.

"Of course you do."

Later, when he's sticky and sweat-soaked, when Misha's a pale curl against his sheets with his head tucked down between the pillows, Jensen does peel the crane open. He knows if he doesn't it will plague him in spite of his lofty designs upon being the bigger man.

> We love because it's the only true adventure. [[4]](http://docepax.livejournal.com/12308.html)

Inches away, Misha sighs in his sleep and kicks a foot free of the cocoon of blankets he's spun for himself and Jensen thinks that this time he may just be right.


End file.
